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I do not like MCU films

Even if the DC movies turn out to not be as good, I'm still at least a LOT more excited about their approach, and how they're clearly trying to depict their characters in a much more serious, mythic, and larger than life way-- which is how I've always kinda preferred my superheroes to be.

DC's always been more of a "Archetype Hero" type of Universe, whereas Marvel has always been about rejecting that way of thinking and characterization in favor of characters who are flawed people first and superheroes second.
DC pretty much abandoned that type of characterization in the 70s and 80s. Product like Watchmen, the Dark Knight and the Vertigo line buried that paradigm.

The "Archetype Hero" / mythic characterization never vanished, and was used with great success (more than monthly titles) in specials like Kingdom Come, tabloid editions (ex. JLA: Liberty and Justice) and in the WB animated Superman & Justice League series, where the much of the classic DC characterizations were heavily mixed with modern touches.
 
DC's always been more of a "Archetype Hero" type of Universe, whereas Marvel has always been about rejecting that way of thinking and characterization in favor of characters who are flawed people first and superheroes second.
DC pretty much abandoned that type of characterization in the 70s and 80s. Product like Watchmen, the Dark Knight and the Vertigo line buried that paradigm.

The "Archetype Hero" / mythic characterization never vanished, and was used with great success (more than monthly titles) in specials like Kingdom Come, tabloid editions (ex. JLA: Liberty and Justice) and in the WB animated Superman & Justice League series, where the much of the classic DC characterizations were heavily mixed with modern touches.
I was thinking about the monthlies, not animation, specials or "Elseworlds". DC and Marvel aren't all that different these days.
 
The beauty of cinema is..... You don't have to watch it. There's stuff out there for everyone. Brainy scifi or cheesy scifi, romcoms and romantic dramas. Thrillers, horror, slashers. Comedy and parody.

It's ok to not like something, but there are plenty of people that do. Yes, the plots are watered down and silly. Yes, it's all about big BOOMS! So effing what? Don't watch it if that ain't your bag. But why start a thread like this? If can understand you have this opinion, but this feels more like bashing. You even state that the fans are making it worse. So what? They love it! So let them enjoy it. And you? Don't watch it. Watch something else. Something that you like.

I don't particularly care for the Fast & Furious movies, just not my thing. But I don't feel the need to make a thread stating that fact. You know what I do? I simply don't watch them or be interested in them and just get on with my life, and let those who do like them do so. Maybe you should try that.

The beauty of a message board, especially ones that have threads with titles stating what they are going to be about, is that you don't have to click on them if you don't think you'll like what's being discussed. Seriously, who said topics can only be about gushing over something? Some people don't like talking about things they don't like. Good on them. Some people do.

I don't read threads with titles that make me think "Is this really going to be something I'm going to want to wade through? Is it something that's probably going to give me a headache and possibly just piss me off?" Maybe others should try that as well.

There is no need to start a topic like this that is basicly a bash towards a franchise and the people that like it.

No, criticizing something is neither "bashing" it, nor is it "bashing the people that like it". Holy fuck, There aren't enough eye rolling emoticons for that one.

I guess I never understand why people expect so much of a comicbookmovie. I mean, it's a movie based on a comicbook. Are people saying comics themselves are near literatur or something?

It's all fluff. Both the comics and the movies. Just enjoy it for the simple, brainless entertainment it gives, then move on. They were never made to become the great legacy of our times you know? And if brianless entertaintment isn't your thing, don't watch it.

If you were the only MCU fan saying this, it would be one thing. But now with 12 factory produced films behind us, more and more people are starting to notice the cookie cutter nature of the Marvel Studios films and are starting to comment on it. And this reply is the new standard reply from MCU fans.

It's pretty much this:

Person A: Star Wars has no depth, a paper thin story and is all about FX

Person B: Hey man, it's a sci-fi film. I don't know why people are expecting so much from a sci-fi film. It's all ray guns and people in pajamas flying spaceships. Who expects high art in sci-fi?

Person A: The people that wrote stories like "Duet", "The Inner Light" "The High Ground", "In The Pale Moonlight", "The Visitor" just to name a very, very, very few.

Many comic creators took their work seriously and did not see their characters as mindless fluff and frankly they'd be insulted by this line of logic. Their work was more than just 'splosions and quips because they understood that their chosen medium and genre could be used to tell meaningful and powerful stories.

The hilarious irony is that the Marvel shows on Netflix are giving the finger to the whole "this is all just fluff" thinking as they emulate Nolan's Dark Knight vibe.

I enjoyed them through the end of Phase 1 with the first "Avengers" movie. And even though "Winter Soldier" was decent, overall I'm growing very bored with the franchise. Nothing has been particularly bad, but after so many movies I just can't remain interested anymore, especially since nothing really seems to change from one movie to another.

Pretty much the same for me. With the exception of TWS, everything post Avengers 1 has been "meh" for me. You can only eat chicken nuggets for so long then you need something with a little more substance.

Anyways, I love the MCU films. Mainly for breaking away from that whole "grounded" approach

Having more characters and concepts under their control certainly helped as did the fact that sci-fi and comic book stuff was more acceptable to the general public by the time Marvel Studios rolled around.

and making good movies without giving up on the wondrous Universe full of crazy stuff like Gods and Aliens and Magic and Super-Science the way X-Men did.

Except they haven't shown us either "gods" or "magic". They've shown us aliens who some people thought of as gods, but that doesn't make those aliens gods. When I read Thor, he wasn't an alien people mistook for a god, he was a mythological being. Marvel, regardless of whether it was in the comics or something Marvel Studios came up with, decided to "ground" Thor as an alien because apparently they didn't think people could go for the mythological being angle. That's not embracing their comics roots or the crazy wondrous stuff.

Also, we haven't seen magic yet. We've seen alien tech that might appear as magic to primitive peoples....otherwise it's just tech that we don't understand to modern society. What Scarlet Witch did in Avengers 2 wasn't "magic" either. Her powers were given to her by Hydra experiments. Kinda like how Cap was given powers by Allied experiments. As for Doctor Strange.....well the last comments I heard on the subject by someone at Marvel were that Doc's powers are the ability to manipulate things at the quantum level.

If this is still the approach they're going for, then it's not magic. Now if they embrace the occult approach then yeah, it's magic.

You sound like someone who's a bit embarrassed by the source material - 'Comics are kids stuff'. They're not.

Well I agree, but apparently there's a large segment of MCU fans who think it's all just fluff. :techman:


It's not dumbing down. You don't have to make superheroes stupid, even those who wear colored tights.

I agree. The MCU films themselves are lightweight with little of the substance and weight I remember from reading Marvel comics. They have yet to produce a film with the weight of the Dark Phoenix Saga or even the Eternals Saga from the run up to Thor 300.

Any attempt at a story with a level of seriousness as some of the classics Marvel Comics once produced is derided as "too serious" or "pretentious".

Even if the DC movies turn out to not be as good, I'm still at least a LOT more excited about their approach, and how they're clearly trying to depict their characters in a much more serious, mythic, and larger than life way-- which is how I've always kinda preferred my superheroes to be.

There's obviously nothing wrong with some jokes, but Marvel has made their world SO light and jokey that I just frankly don't feel any sense of awe and wonder about it at all anymore.

A thousand times THIS. I get what you're saying about a lack of awe and wonder in the MCU films. It started with Irom Man's "Yeah, I can fly" which turned the traditional "first flight" of a hero on it's head. Here was no wide eyed wonder, but just "Yeah, okay." And it was an amusing and refreshing twist on the "heroes first flight" thing. But when characters in subsequent films are "meh" to things they should be going "holy shit!" to, then it gets old.

No, for me what I don't feel in a Marvel Studios films is a sense of threat, tension or seriousness. I've said this before, but if everybody on the super team can make jokes while fighting the bad guy.....then that's not a bad guy that I need to take seriously. It strips all drama and tension from the scene because if they're not taking seriously, then why should I?

This is why I don't want the X-men or Spidey going to Marvel Studios. I believe Kevin Feige said that if they got Spidey back, they'd get rid of all the soap opera and deliver a grand adventure or something like that. Completely forgetting that the soap opera was a HUGE part of Spidey's appeal. It wasn't that he just fought Rhino or Doc Ock, it's how that fight affected his personal, professional or romantic life. Spidey wasn't a millionaire, so being a hero could affect his ability to have a normal job and love life and seeing him deal with all of that was part of the characters appeal.

Apparently Kevin Feige didn't get the memo.

With 12 superhero films since 2008, the Marvel Studios formula has become the status quo for superhero films. I relish every break from that increasingly stale status quo. Bring on the DCU.
 
No, for me what I don't feel in a Marvel Studios films is a sense of threat, tension or seriousness. I've said this before, but if everybody on the super team can make jokes while fighting the bad guy.....then that's not a bad guy that I need to take seriously. It strips all drama and tension from the scene because if they're not taking seriously, then why should I?

In World War I, the Trench Soldiers made jokes all the time while getting shelled. Reality isn't always...realistic.
 
I don't hate the MCU movies, but they do have a generic quality equivalent to fast food. You know you will get a consistent product: a quiptastic script with not much emotional weight, plus a glossy look with tons of CGI. It's good to have these risk-free options available in the cinema, but apart from various fanboy tidbits it's not something to get excited about.

Whatever BvS turns out to be, there is at least the sense that something new is being attempted.

I think the first X-Men is still the best superhero movie.
 
No, for me what I don't feel in a Marvel Studios films is a sense of threat, tension or seriousness. I've said this before, but if everybody on the super team can make jokes while fighting the bad guy.....then that's not a bad guy that I need to take seriously. It strips all drama and tension from the scene because if they're not taking seriously, then why should I?

In World War I, the Trench Soldiers made jokes all the time while getting shelled. Reality isn't always...realistic.
That's a bit different. I doubt they were quipping when the shells stopped and they were ordered to go over the top.

Though quipping is a Marvel trademark, especially for Spider-man.
 
The beauty of a message board, especially ones that have threads with titles stating what they are going to be about, is that you don't have to click on them if you don't think you'll like what's being discussed. Seriously, who said topics can only be about gushing over something? Some people don't like talking about things they don't like. Good on them. Some people do.

I don't read threads with titles that make me think "Is this really going to be something I'm going to want to wade through? Is it something that's probably going to give me a headache and possibly just piss me off?" Maybe others should try that as well.
There are lots of substantive critiques to aim at the MCU - that they glorify reckless and narcissistic Great Men at the expense of the common citizen, that their subtexts are lightweight at best, that they're as white and male as a GOP fundraising event, that their grand arc seems to be building to a story that would be right at home in a Mighty Morphing Power Rangers episode... but the OP didn't bother to provide an interesting read of an argument, he just went "waaaaaah!!" for a few sentences, so it's no wonder most of the replies haven't been too impressed with said position. ;)



And that's another good point. Why would movie goers and movie makers waste so much time and effort with something they thought was fluff?
Well, in the case of Transformers, I'm thinking it's cold, hard, soulless (digital) cash. :p
 
^ That does happen but even then, there are those in the process who see some value, like thinking how cool it would be to see a book or cartoon made into to live action.
 
Gaith, would you say Great Man glorification is inevitable in superhero movies, maybe unless the hero has a big supporting cast of non-powered characters?
 
I guess I never understand why people expect so much of a comicbookmovie. I mean, it's a movie based on a comicbook. Are people saying comics themselves are near literatur or something?

It's all fluff. Both the comics and the movies. Just enjoy it for the simple, brainless entertainment it gives, then move on. They were never made to become the great legacy of our times you know? And if brianless entertaintment isn't your thing, don't watch it.

This. I've been reading The Avengers since the 1960s, and the last movie was pretty much what the comic has always been. Big world-ending threat; Lotsa booms; fighting among themselves; maybe a little romance; lotsa booms; another fight... Did I mention booms? Booms.
 
I guess I never understand why people expect so much of a comicbookmovie. I mean, it's a movie based on a comicbook. Are people saying comics themselves are near literatur or something?

It's all fluff. Both the comics and the movies. Just enjoy it for the simple, brainless entertainment it gives, then move on. They were never made to become the great legacy of our times you know? And if brianless entertaintment isn't your thing, don't watch it.

There are some comic book movies out there that satisfy on both an artistic and entertainment level: American Splendor and Persepolis come to mind, though obviously to be fair, those aren't Marvel/DC movies, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I wouldn't say any Marvel/DC movie quite hits that status, but I'm a firm believer that the potential is always there. Movies and comics are more often than not fluff, but both forms have also produced some really great contributions over the past century.

In the end though, you're right: to each their own.
 
If you reduce a movie to nothing more than its BOOMS then all you are seeing are its BOOMS. You are not seeing or appreciating the movie for what it is.

If you reduce a woman to nothing more than her boobs, then all you are seeing are its boobs. You are not seeing or appreciating the woman for who or what she is.

Some folks have fixations, I guess. :D
 
Gaith, would you say Great Man glorification is inevitable in superhero movies, maybe unless the hero has a big supporting cast of non-powered characters?
When dealing with characters that have been around for decades, and whose names alone are movies' dominant raison d'être, yeah, I'd say Great Man glorification is pretty inevitable in superhero movies. This TV show Powers sounds like it might actually be an outlier in that regard, but then, of course, it's a series, not a movie.
 

The MCU is the superhero approach most comic enthusiasts wanted.

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not for me .

burton, nolan, and others have much better comic films than marvel. my problem with marvel is they set out to make dumb films because that is what sells, I just need something better.

the idea that mcu films are the best comic films out there is ludicrous to me. I think they are some of the worst.
 
burton, nolan, and others have much better comic films than marvel. my problem with marvel is they set out to make dumb films because that is what sells, I just need something better.

the idea that mcu films are the best comic films out there is ludicrous to me. I think they are some of the worst.
And the rest of us should care about your non-substantiated opinions... why? :rolleyes:

Write something interesting, or not at all.
 
Just because something light hearted and fun doesn't mean it's dumb.
I really enjoy the Nolan movies as serious movies that just happen to feature a superhero, they are great movies, but to me they don't really feel like comic book movies.
The Marvel movies on the other hand, feel like comic books brought to life, and that's why I love them.
I do enjoy serious dramas and grounded movies, but I love light, fun, movies like the MCU films.
If I had a choice between 100 Dark Knights or 1 Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, or Avengers, I would go with Guardians, Ant-Man, and Avengers every time.
I'm hoping the DCCU movie might be able to find a middle ground for me.
 
I find their films generally boring, simplistic, having no plot very watered down for kiddies

All superhero stories are ultimately based on a foundation of childhood power fantasies. This does not preclude them from being great works of art, but it is silly to pretend that they are built on the same artistic foundation as, say, a Philip Roth novel.
 
Generally, I'm not a fan. But there has been a couple films out of the bunch that I enjoyed.
 
I've watched all of them...I'm even watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on TV. I'm just crazy like that.

This sums it up for me, too. You could smell crazy on me, my mind is like a bag of cats.



BTW, Tay la la made a similar Star Wars thread and they closed it down kind of quick. ???
 
I've watched all of them...I'm even watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on TV. I'm just crazy like that.

This sums it up for me, too. You could smell crazy on me, my mind is like a bag of cats.



BTW, Tay la la made a similar Star Wars thread and they closed it down kind of quick. ???

I don't think that thread and this thread have really any similarities, plus I believe their were other factors in play which closed the thread.

As for the MCU in general, I like most of the films for what they are, they're not exactly high art, but something to enjoy and kinda switch off and watch.
 
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