Marvel Cinematic Universe General Discussion 6: Just Send Me a Raven T-Bone

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

So the first trailer for the inhumans show is out. This looks pretty terrible, from the production values to the way the characters come across.

I had no idea how whiny Iwan Rheon is in his 'serious' voice. It makes sense, but ugh. And the rest? Oy. 

[The Anti-Targ]

Brilliant for Spider Man getting hot reviews, and hopefully pulling in big audience numbers across the world. I've seen 2 non-spoiler reviews from youtubers and they really loved it. Particularly noting how Peter Parker is really well done as an everyman (or everyhighschooler). Great props for Tom Holland's performance and that he can solo carry a blockbuster movie. Which hopefully is a bright spot for his pivot to Nathan Drake.

[The Wolves]

1 hour ago, Bastard of Boston said:

So far, so excellent on the Spidey reviews. Really looking forward to this one.

Regarding the "will they/won't they?" I think this is Marvel TV all over again. The MCU is still gatekeeper. They have the rep and can be as discriminatory as they want. Spidey is still Sony's. I imagine they'll reference Spidey in their other movies and even use him. Marvel can either acknowledge those movies or not. Sony will never allow Marvel to do anything to contradict their cinematic universe in their movies, as they will always own Spidey and his extended cast. Basically, we'll have another "These things are all happening in the same universe, even if nothing is referenced in the other studio's films."

I hope someday very soon that Marvel gets back the rights to Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men. 

[The Anti-Targ]

48 minutes ago, The Wolves said:

I hope someday very soon that Marvel gets back the rights to Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men. 

2 of those things are not going to happen any time in the foreseeable future. F4 maybe since Fox has completely failed at getting it to work for them. But they might hold on to F4 and find a way to bring some of the cosmic villains into X-Men. Since X-Men is going cosmic in the next movie, it's not a big stretch to bring Galactus and Silver Surfer in the X-men. Fox might well be making plans to start it's own FMCU, possibly even cast some new actors into F4 and just shoehorn them into X-men movies. But while they can't screw up F4 any worse than they already have, the can certainly do a lot more to screw up X-men. So for now with F4 being pretty toxic I don't expect the F4 heroes to hop across to X-men. But maybe after some more water has gone under the bridge.

If Sony can manage to bottle what's making Homecoming arguably the best Spider Man movie ever and make a series of good movies, then as long as Marvel and Sony keep playing nice and let each other borrow characters from time to time then I don't mind Spidey staying with Sony. Somehow, though I get the feeling Sony will find a way to screw things up. Either they'll drop the ball on Spider Man and make shit solo movies, or the Solo movie series will do so well (and Venom will miraculously do well too) that Sony will refuse to carry the deal with Disney forward and Spidey will go his separate way and spit form the Avengers. But there is always going to be a problem with solo super heroes. Any given iteration is only good for about 3 or 4 movies. After that a reboot is necessary. But what Disney/Marvel has shown is that an ensemble cast of heroes has considerable longevity because different heroes can carry different movies and CUs can be milked for way more profits than solo heroes. I hope Sony recognises that the long term profits from Spider Man come from a long term connection to the MCU, for as long as the MCU is enjoying success.

[The BlackBear]

I'm happy with X-Men at Fox, they're pretty independent in the comics, and not having other powered people around keeps the mutant rights argument focused. It also gives us more variety in style, the MCU has it's style nailed down to a fault. They'd make X-Men films exactly the same way they make all of their films. For instance, Deadpool, Logen, no chance would we have got that from Disney. New Mutants looks like it's going pretty dark too.

The Fantastic 4 can never be on screen again for all I care, but I want their villains in the MCU.

 

Edit: And yes Inhumans looks terrible. It's good dog though, but that's about it.

[Kalbear]

I just don't get the love for FF. Like, as a concept, as the powers, as anything. Save one thing - Doom. Doom can be an amazingly good villain, and gods know that any of the marvel universe could use another one, but the FF are his lamest enemies. He is more interesting against the avengers, against the xmen, against spider-man, against basically anyone. 

Now, the FF version of Doom has so far sucked three different times. He should be so very easy to get right, either modernized or no. They didn't do a bad job with Dormammu, for crying out loud, and he's a giant purple screensaver. 

[The Anti-Targ]

I agree that F4 are pretty damned lame as superheroes go. And it's probably why Fox has not been able to make F4 really work. So maybe not ALL blame for F4 movies faltering can be laid at the studio, writers, directors and actors.

Can fox retain the rights if they only use the villain roster in the X-men movies, or do they have to use the F4 characters to keep the rights? The last thing the superhero genre needs is the regular recycling of the F4 characters in ever lamer movies just so Fox can keep the movie rights.

[mormont]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I agree that F4 are pretty damned lame as superheroes go.

The FF are great. People screw them up, but they're amazing as superheroes go. The key is, they're a family, not a team. Reed's the dad, Sue's the mom, Johnny's the kid, Ben's the grumpy uncle. Simple dynamics but strong.

As for the individual characters, who doesn't love Ben Grimm? A guy who got great power, at the cost of becoming monstrous in appearance, but still has a heroic, kindly heart? Who has all that strength, but the best thing he can say about himself is 'I'm too stupid and ugly to quit'? He's literally a gentle man under a rocky exterior. Terrific character.

Johnny's character is a little on-the-nose - he has fire powers and he's a hothead - which is one reason why it's easy to screw up. But you just have to use him as the one who actually enjoys his powers, which the best comics writers do. They key to Sue is, she's stronger than she looks: she's the one who really leads the team, not Reed. Reed, meanwhile, is a fascinating character so long as you make sure to retain his core decency, instead of painting him (as the comics too often have) as the intellectual who loses his moral compass in the pursuit of science. He's an adventurer, an explorer, not a bad guy.

These characters literally founded modern superhero comics in the '60s. People wanted to read about them so much, other companies changed their whole publishing style to rip them off. They are proven to be absolutely terrific, as superheroes go. They've just had a bad run of writers, in comics and in movies, who feel the need to overwrite what makes them great.

[polishgenius]

4 hours ago, mormont said:

They've just had a bad run of writers, in comics and in movies, who feel the need to overwrite what makes them great.

And then (in comics) they finally got a good writer in Jonathan Hickman who wrote a run so legendary that it was apparently deemed unfollowable and they cancelled it.

[Calibandar]

Fantastic Four sucks. The individual characters just aren't interesting enough, part of that is the way they look and what they are doing, part of it is their power. No wonder all the attempts flop.

 

On 2017-6-29 at 11:51 PM, Kalbear said:

I had no idea how whiny Iwan Rheon is in his 'serious' voice. It makes sense, but ugh. And the rest? Oy. 

I'm still interested in this show but Ramsay as Black Bolt's brother is what actually irritates me more than anything in that trailer.

 

[The Mother of The Others]

 

  Sony will refuse to carry the deal with Disney forward and Spidey will go his separate way and spit form the Avengers. 

AntMan would be the most gifted user of Spit Form , better to save that for his next movie than waste it on  the Avengers.......

 

FF outside of a comic book is painful, a nightmare proposition for a writer.   Tooooo much gooberishness to have to paint over with the brush of realism.    it'd show thru any such efforts like when you try to disguise that orange rock guy in a dress shirt.

Can't MCU just buy Sony already?  

I feel like marvel is biased toward spiderman, you know?  Like its clouding their judgment as he shoehorns himself in to dominate MCU while postponing the movies i really wanted to see sooner rather rhan later.   Re-Segregation of the hero with the silliest outfit!   Yes.

[Bastard of Boston]

On 6/30/2017 at 8:58 AM, polishgenius said:

And then (in comics) they finally got a good writer in Jonathan Hickman who wrote a run so legendary that it was apparently deemed unfollowable and they cancelled it.

This x 10000000000. Anyone who questions "Why Fantastic Four?" should read his run. The reason why people hold the FF in such high esteem is they are THEE foundation of the Marvel Universe. They may be antiquated for some, but shitting on the FF is like shitting on someone's grandparents. You just don't do it. Even if you don't read FF, it's comforting knowing they at least exist.

Beyond that, if done right, an FF movie could be amazing. They tap into a side of the Marvel U no other character does, IMO. They just need to stop introducing them as 20-somethings. Play up the family angle. Give Reed and Sue their kids.

I had this idea (probably stolen from somewhere) that they could revamp the origin story by having the FF actually be from the 60s...they went on their space trip, got enveloped in a space/time warp and spit out in the year 2017, thinking it's only been a month. World goes bananas because the long missing space family returns after decades with amazing powers. I guess the only issue with that is the fish out of water thing has been with Cap.

[The Anti-Targ]

22 hours ago, Bastard of Boston said:

This x 10000000000. Anyone who questions "Why Fantastic Four?" should read his run. The reason why people hold the FF in such high esteem is they are THEE foundation of the Marvel Universe. They may be antiquated for some, but shitting on the FF is like shitting on someone's grandparents. You just don't do it. Even if you don't read FF, it's comforting knowing they at least exist.

Beyond that, if done right, an FF movie could be amazing. They tap into a side of the Marvel U no other character does, IMO. They just need to stop introducing them as 20-somethings. Play up the family angle. Give Reed and Sue their kids.

I had this idea (probably stolen from somewhere) that they could revamp the origin story by having the FF actually be from the 60s...they went on their space trip, got enveloped in a space/time warp and spit out in the year 2017, thinking it's only been a month. World goes bananas because the long missing space family returns after decades with amazing powers. I guess the only issue with that is the fish out of water thing has been with Cap.

How about taking the Homecoming angle and NOT redoing the origin story? The core audience, including those who saw the 2005 movie but don't read the comics, don't need a retelling of the origin story (can be told in the opening credits basically, if you need a quick refresher). So they can jump straight into a more interesting and original 1st act. And there is enough of the core audience for a movie to do well. And China is a much bigger market than it was in 2005. The 2005 F4 did pretty well at the box office and that was with pretty poop reviews. Aside from having to recast Chris Evans, They could maybe think about bringing the old crew back and make a movie 15 years along from the original, with Reed and Susan having pre-teen kids. No Uncle Doom though I suppose. 

 

[Bastard of Boston]

Alba as Sue Storm? I'll pass on that. It's hard not to do an origin story with the FF if we're doing something to insert them into the MCU. Spider-Man is different -- he's small, only operating out of his own neighborhood. He could've existed without the world noticing. It would be very difficult to do an FF story without an origin.

Thing is, the FF's origin has been shown in two different ways in the previous films. This isn't even a spider bite situation. In the last movie, they never even went to space. I think an origin movie can work, as we haven't seen them in space for awhile.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 hour ago, Bastard of Boston said:

Alba as Sue Storm? I'll pass on that. It's hard not to do an origin story with the FF if we're doing something to insert them into the MCU. Spider-Man is different -- he's small, only operating out of his own neighborhood. He could've existed without the world noticing. It would be very difficult to do an FF story without an origin.

Thing is, the FF's origin has been shown in two different ways in the previous films. This isn't even a spider bite situation. In the last movie, they never even went to space. I think an origin movie can work, as we haven't seen them in space for awhile.

I personally would ban ALL origin stories for superhero movies from this point onwards. They almost always have the exact same story structure and flaws:

 

- First half. Establish a character with issues, introduce life changing event, set them on course to become new persona

- Learn to use new powers and responsiblilty to fight some poorly sketched bad dude who threatens the world in some way. Defeat them, look pensively into the future and wonder what will happen next.

Its so tiring and even though I always tend to enjoy the first half of these movies, knowing exactly where they are going in the second half is dull as hell. 

[Damelon]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I personally would ban ALL origin stories for superhero movies from this point onwards. They almost always have the exact same story structure and flaws:

 

- First half. Establish a character with issues, introduce life changing event, set them on course to become new persona

- Learn to use new powers and responsiblilty to fight some poorly sketched bad dude who threatens the world in some way. Defeat them, look pensively into the future and wonder what will happen next.

Its so tiring and even though I always tend to enjoy the first half of these movies, knowing exactly where they are going in the second half is dull as hell. 

It is.

I would like to add to the structure:

- Third act battle against antagonist, usually a dark reflection of the protagonist powers-wise, often taking place in the air.

 

[The BlackBear]

Bonus points if there's a sky beam.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Haha yes they usually are in the air and involve much damage to public property.

Id say my issue that by having this structure they are really never able to do the second half justice because it's rushed and simply an excuse to show off the heroes newly acquired powers. 

Some movies hide it a bit better than others , but almost all origin stories fail massively in their final act. Iron man, Spider-Man , Wonder Woman, batman begins, captain America... 

[Rhom]

54 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Haha yes they usually are in the air and involve much damage to public property.

Id say my issue that by having this structure they are really never able to do the second half justice because it's rushed and simply an excuse to show off the heroes newly acquired powers. 

Some movies hide it a bit better than others , but almost all origin stories fail massively in their final act. Iron man, Spider-Man , Wonder Woman, batman begins, captain America... 

You thought the Raimi Spider-Man failed in its final act?  

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Yep totally. That is another great movie slightly spoiled by its last act