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MCUniverse: Into the Spider-Thread


SpaceChampion

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8 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

But Cate Blanchett is playing the lead Russian character. Kinda still demonstrates Hollywood is not putting linguistic representation high on the priority list for leading characters. I guess the have the excuse with David Harbour that the conceit at the start of the movie is they are pretending to be Americans. Also David Harbour is a pop culture favourite right now because of Stranger Things, so he was a good get. Ray Winstone on the other hand, that casting pick is a head scratcher. Even if you were determined to insult Russians but casting a non-Russian, why would you cast him? I can't imagine he was their first choice, possibly not even on their A-list.

Soviet lead character. Spalko is a Urkanian surname. And in the movie's lore, despite being born in Kazan, she was raised in eastern Ukraine - the Russian-speaking half of the country.

None of which explains away the uh...not...great accent. I could find no mention in the press or from interviews of voice coach acting (if anyone has information re: this, please feel free to share it), and it's consistently cringe-inducing. 

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Black Widow was not a good movie, I thought it was one of the more forgettable entries in the MCU. Made we wish they'd done an origin story about Natasha's defection to the US, written by Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, now that would've been a more interesting movie. I'm really amazed at the overwhelmingly positive reception that it's getting, but I wonder how people would look back on it say, 5 years from now.

51 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

Soviet lead character. Spalko is a Urkanian surname. And in the movie's lore, despite being born in Kazan, she was raised in eastern Ukraine - the Russian-speaking half of the country.

None of which explains away the uh...not...great accent. I could find no mention in the press or from interviews of voice coach acting (if anyone has information re: this, please feel free to share it), and it's consistently cringe-inducing. 

Tim Monich was her dialect coach. His other credits include The Trial of The Chicago 7, Ford V Ferrari, A Star is Born, Silence, The Great Wall, The Wolf of Wall Street and Django Unchained. He's also worked with Cate in other movies such as The Good German, I'm Not There, Hannah and The House with the Clock on its Walls. So maybe it's just a limitation of the actor/actress instead of the dialect coach. Charles Dance had a dialect coach for playing William Randolph Hurst in Mank but he still ended up sounding extremely British.

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3 minutes ago, Cashless Society said:

So maybe it's just a limitation of the actor/actress instead of the dialect coach.

It was painful to listen to her accent. How does Tim Monich continue getting work if he couldn't "fix" (I guess?) Charles Dance *or* Cate Blanchett. 

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6 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Soviet lead character. Spalko is a Urkanian surname. And in the movie's lore, despite being born in Kazan, she was raised in eastern Ukraine - the Russian-speaking half of the country.

None of which explains away the uh...not...great accent. I could find no mention in the press or from interviews of voice coach acting (if anyone has information re: this, please feel free to share it), and it's consistently cringe-inducing. 

Apologies for my ignorance. In all honesty, my level of ignorance is unlikely to improve, however I will try to compensate in future by making fewer assumptions.

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6 hours ago, IlyaP said:

It was painful to listen to her accent. How does Tim Monich continue getting work if he couldn't "fix" (I guess?) Charles Dance *or* Cate Blanchett. 

Well, his IMDB page has over 200 credits, so one could assume that Blanchett was a deviation rather than the standard. On the other hand he could be doing a generally bad job of dialect coaching but if 90% of the audience is unbothered, is the opinion of the remaining 10% going to matter in terms of him getting the next gig? Another reason could be that he's easy to work with. I'm nowhere near the film industry, but given how insiders describe it; it doesn't really matter if you're the best person for the job, if the important individuals don't feel comfortable working with you then you're not going to be seeing a lot of work.

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17 hours ago, Quijote Light said:

I didn’t read the article, but did see a headline that said Marvel was no longer signing actors to the same lengthy contracts they did during the earlier going. 

They may not need to now that everyone in Hollywood wants to work on their films anyway since they’re a guaranteed box office smash that can heighten your popularity overnight.

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17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Apologies for my ignorance. In all honesty, my level of ignorance is unlikely to improve, however I will try to compensate in future by making fewer assumptions.

Oh it's quite alright. I can't possibly expect people to know Russian and Soviet history to the same level as I do. As long as people are happy to learn something new and don't get upset by having their facts corrected, I'm a happy chappy. 

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Captain Midnights latest video hits the nail on the head when it comes to just why so many Marvel movies seem to descend into a bland cgi fight scene at the end despite early promise.

Havent seen Black Widow yet but from a lot of accounts and the trailer it seems to be exactly that.

If it’s true that directors are told they don’t have to worry about the action scenes because Disney will ‘take care of it’ and that they start working on the big fight before almost anything else, than that would explain a lot. 
 

That’s my issue with these MCU movies, Disney bring in talented directors and give them a few inches to do their thing but they still have to release control to Disney when it comes to the money shots.

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6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If it’s true that directors are told they don’t have to worry about the action scenes because Disney will ‘take care of it’ and that they start working on the big fight before almost anything else, than that would explain a lot. 

 

 

I don't think that's true because if it was there wouldn't be such wildly varying levels of quality in the action. Do they mandate the inclusion of certain action scenes that go a certain way? Well yes, quite likely, we already know MCU movies are made like that, with the directors working on license and under instruction. Do Disney just tell them not to do the action sequences at all coz someone else will direct them? No chance. 

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52 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I don't think that's true because if it was there wouldn't be such wildly varying levels of quality in the action. Do they mandate the inclusion of certain action scenes that go a certain way? Well yes, quite likely, we already know MCU movies are made like that, with the directors working on license and under instruction. Do Disney just tell them not to do the action sequences at all coz someone else will direct them? No chance. 

Yeah, you can't tell me that the action scenes in Ragnarok weren't directed by Waititi.  They all feel like he's got his fingerprints on them.  I'm sure he has to work within the framework that Marvel grants him, but a lot of these movies have very different feels to them, even, as you said, in the quality (and tone) of the action.  The same is true of Guardians with Gunn, or the Spider-Man movies with Watts.  

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I haven't watched the video, but I remember reading that the Captain Marvel directors were told if they weren't comfortable filming the action scenes they didn't have to worry about it. I have no Idea if that's true. I've never read anything about marvel insisting they have total control over the action sequences. There's a big difference between "we can handle this if you don't want to" and "you won't actually be directing the action scenes."

 

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Well, they have tried to focus on directors that don’t necessarily have a big track record of action movies.  I think that’s a strength of the franchise.  They get directors with good character history rather than just grabbing Brett Ratner or something.

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1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Well, they have tried to focus on directors that don’t necessarily have a big track record of action movies.  I think that’s a strength of the franchise.  They get directors with good character history rather than just grabbing Brett Ratner or something.

lol

if I ever see Michael Bay attached to a MCU movie imma peacesign_fadeout.gif

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3 hours ago, RumHam said:

I haven't watched the video, but I remember reading that the Captain Marvel directors were told if they weren't comfortable filming the action scenes they didn't have to worry 

 

Well in that instance they shoulda taken Disney up on it coz the action in Captain Marvel was incompetent.

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I mean, I loved the first 30 minutes of Black Widow, but the longer the film went on, the more the movie felt like it was filmed on a green screen; the climax in particular. I don't understand why everything has to be over the top, and the biggest thing ever. Natasha should have had a climax similar to a Born Identity film and not a Guardians of the Galaxy one.

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3 hours ago, sifth said:

I mean, I loved the first 30 minutes of Black Widow, but the longer the film went on, the more the movie felt like it was filmed on a green screen; the climax in particular. I don't understand why everything has to be over the top, and the biggest thing ever. Natasha should have had a climax similar to a Born Identity film and not a Guardians of the Galaxy one.

That was the problem with the film for me.  It just didn't know what it wanted to be.  Was it Jason Bourne?  The fight in the apartment sure felt like it.  Was it a campy James Bond romp?  There were parts that felt that way too.

The movie was just to "safe" overall and the fact that it fit in a timeline where we know there's no significant fallout made it feel smaller.  You can do a personal story in that time window, but to have globe spanning consequences in that spot will always feel smaller.  Maybe on rewatches down the road when people inevitably watch this after Civil War, it will have a better pacing.  (But if future people are avoiding spoilers... they'll need to skip the end credits!)

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2 hours ago, Rhom said:

That was the problem with the film for me.  It just didn't know what it wanted to be.  Was it Jason Bourne?  The fight in the apartment sure felt like it.  Was it a campy James Bond romp?  There were parts that felt that way too.

The movie was just to "safe" overall and the fact that it fit in a timeline where we know there's no significant fallout made it feel smaller.  You can do a personal story in that time window, but to have globe spanning consequences in that spot will always feel smaller.  Maybe on rewatches down the road when people inevitably watch this after Civil War, it will have a better pacing.  (But if future people are avoiding spoilers... they'll need to skip the end credits!)

 

I mean to me the end credit scene was just an attempt to appease the Twitter mob, that was upset that Natasha never got a funeral. It also makes very little sense how anyone outside of the Avengers would know about Hawkeye being with her when she died and what not; but Marvel needs to use it’s post credit scenes to set up it’s sequels and tv shows I suppose.

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

Natasha should have had a climax similar to a Born Identity film and not a Guardians of the Galaxy one.

I dunno, a dance off between her and taskmaster could have worked. 

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4 hours ago, RumHam said:

I dunno, a dance off between her and taskmaster could have worked. 

Sure, it would have been ballet though.

I think the fate of all those Widows on the line was big enough and appropriate stakes.  It also contrasted with the Natasha in Endgame, in the sense that in this one for her to succeed to free the Widows she had to live and get away with the information on their locations; in that one to get the Soul stone she had to die.

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