MCU: KEVIN's world

[Heartofice]

There is definitely a major issue with FX houses not being able to handle the chopping and changing and the rapid pace of the way Marvel have been working. I do think somewhere, some responsibility has to lay with someone like Alonso as well however. At some point someone needed to put their foot down and define what was and wasn't possible in time frames, or set up a systemic landscape where its possible to adapt better to changing circumstances.

I think it is also an issue with the way MCU properties deal with action scenes and how much directors have control over these things. It sounds like much of the responsibility gets passed off to get 'done in the edit' rather than working hard to make sure everything is nailed down before shooting. Or that they hire directors with zero experience of directing action, in the knowledge that they can get someone else to handle that bit. 

With a strong hand and good pre-planning you can try to anticipate potential problems down the road. Right now it seems like directors are just assuming it will all look good in the end without really having control. I mean if you had a strong vision for how you are going to do Quantumania do you really allow the whole thing to be basically shot against a flat projection screen, over relying on The Volume to do the work for you. You can blame over worked FX houses all you like but a decision was made at some point to just film the whole movie in this crappy flat manner, and that stems from organisational issues.

[sifth]

I noticed quite a lot of horrible CGI in these films, since Black Widow. I remember that film having this one car crash and it looking like the fakest car crash I ever saw, in a studio made film and was like “WTF”. 
 

I really wish studios would stop over using CGI. I know practical effects aren’t cheap, but in the end they usually look more real. 

[Heartofice]

46 minutes ago, sifth said:

I noticed quite a lot of horrible CGI in these films, since Black Widow. I remember that film having this one car crash and it looking like the fakest car crash I ever saw, in a studio made film and was like “WTF”. 
 

I really wish studios would stop over using CGI. I know practical effects aren’t cheap, but in the end they usually look more real. 

A few years ago the big complaint about MCU movies was that they all looked the same, with the same washed out grey visuals. Its funny how nobody talks about that now because its been over taken by flat out terrible effects.

You pretty much had the whole Civil War / Winter Soldier approach before, where there was a lot of wire work and practical stuff interlaced with effects (yes too much CGI in places but it seemed pretty convincing), and then the galactic approach of GotG. Pretty much all of the MCU now is following the GotG visual approach, but seemingly doing it wrong. Those movies seemed able to make fantastical settings feel somewhat 'real', and sure it often felt like people on a set, it worked harder to mask it. 

Now Love and Thunder and Quantumania are maybe the worst examples of lazy 'people standing in front of a greenscreen' shit I've ever seen. And stuff like She-Hulk doesn't seem even slightly planned for how to block shots or light things to make up for the limits of technology. Most of it just feels like laziness and bad planning.

[sifth]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

A few years ago the big complaint about MCU movies was that they all looked the same, with the same washed out grey visuals. Its funny how nobody talks about that now because its been over taken by flat out terrible effects.

You pretty much had the whole Civil War / Winter Soldier approach before, where there was a lot of wire work and practical stuff interlaced with effects (yes too much CGI in places but it seemed pretty convincing), and then the galactic approach of GotG. Pretty much all of the MCU now is following the GotG visual approach, but seemingly doing it wrong. Those movies seemed able to make fantastical settings feel somewhat 'real', and sure it often felt like people on a set, it worked harder to mask it. 

Now Love and Thunder and Quantumania are maybe the worst examples of lazy 'people standing in front of a greenscreen' shit I've ever seen. And stuff like She-Hulk doesn't seem even slightly planned for how to block shots or light things to make up for the limits of technology. Most of it just feels like laziness and bad planning.

A perfect example of blending practical effects with CGI is the amazing car chase with Nick Fury, at the start of Winter Soldier.

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, sifth said:

A perfect example of blending practical effects with CGI is the amazing car chase with Nick Fury, at the start of Winter Soldier.

Yeah also what mainly comes to mind is how they made Black Panther and Bucky look like they run really fast!
 

Today you just imagine they would make them do running motions in front of a background that moves fast and shake the camera a bit. They just put more effort into it before.

[DaveSumm]

The MCU owes a huge debt to the Russos. I’m trying to think how much heavy lifting Winter Soldier - Civil War - Infinity War - Endgame does for my love of the franchise. Even now, seeing Cap kick the car into a guy in Civil War and then Black Widow get body slammed down into a tank, it was so visceral, really made you wince as it happened. 

[Kalbear]

Yep. Russos are pretty much responsible for almost all of the popular parts of the MCU. Iron Man wasn't even that greatly appreciated until them, IMO; Iron Man 3 wasn't that popular. The Russos managed to do the following:

- Make Cap one of the best superheroes despite him being shit on over and over in Avengers 1 and 2

- Introduce the entire Black Panther arc and allow Chadwick Boseman to almost singlehandedly guide the look and feel of the culture

- Introduce Tom Holland as Spider-Man

- Showcase the multiple superhero team up at once and not make it suck

- Ground most everything in the real world

- Make Tony Stark actually kind of interesting as a mentor/role model instead of a loner douchebag

 

The one thing they didn't do is GotG. That's probably the other part that worked. Thor Ragnarok also was pretty cool, but as we've seen that was probably a one-time hit from Waititi. 

[Myrddin]

Kal summed it up perfectly. Outside of Russos and Gunn movies (and Ragnarök), none of the other MCU movies were elevated above good. Ok, I would add Watts, as I think he did a good job with Spiderman.

I enjoyed the rest, but it wasn't until Winter Soldier and GotG that I became wow'ed.

[Heartofice]

I think we do have to give at least some credit to the stuff that had been laid down before the Russos got involved, even if they just took it to another level.

 

[Corvinus85]

50 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

The one thing they didn't do is GotG. That's probably the other part that worked. Thor Ragnarok also was pretty cool, but as we've seen that was probably a one-time hit from Waititi. 

Yeah, I feel that they handled Thor pretty well, too, especially in Infinity War.

[Myrddin]

Exactly. Most of the earlier movies were decent to good. Russos elevated the story and character work to where I was truly impressed, and they were able to keep building to the amazing culmination in Endgame.

 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think we do have to give at least some credit to the stuff that had been laid down before the Russos got involved, even if they just took it to another level.

Some? Probably the most credit needs to be given for Iron Man and RDJ. Avengers 1 was completely shitty for Cap (especially with his absurd lip gloss and constant mocking of being pure of heart). Avengers 2 was at least building off of Hydra to start, but still made Cap this butt of all the jokes for Iron man to set up - and changed Hydra from this very secret society of betrayers and fairly competent people to this weird superscience org with mad doctors and joking flunkies. Wanda and Vision were basically nothing until Civil War. And Black Widow was painful.

Heck, the whole thing with Loki and the Chitauri in Avengers was kind of trash, especially given the later views of what Thanos could do and how strong he was. 

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

Kal summed it up perfectly. Outside of Russos and Gunn movies (and Ragnarök), none of the other MCU movies were elevated above good. Ok, I would add Watts, as I think he did a good job with Spiderman.

I enjoyed the rest, but it wasn't until Winter Soldier and GotG that I became wow'ed.

I think No Way Home is pretty up there as well. I know it over used nostalgia, but it was honestly the only MCU film since End Game, to make me actually feel an emotion, that wasn't either anger or annoyance.

[Heartofice]

I think pretty much all the elements for why the main characters worked were established in those earlier movies. They are not perfect but Iron Man, Cap and Thor set out the groundwork and did a lot of the heavy lifting that was improved upon by the Russos. 
 

 

[sifth]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

I think pretty much all the elements for why the main characters worked were established in those earlier movies. They are not perfect but Iron Man, Cap and Thor set out the groundwork and did a lot of the heavy lifting that was improved upon by the Russos. 
 

 

I'd go as far to say, that Thor 1, was a bad film. The cast was amazing, don't get me wrong, but the over all plot just felt way too boring for me. They also failed at making me care about the frost giants, at the end, by portraying all of the ones who appeared on screen, as demonic monsters.

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, sifth said:

I'd go as far to say, that Thor 1, was a bad film. The cast was amazing, don't get me wrong, but the over all plot just felt way too boring for me. They also failed at making me care about the frost giants, at the end, by portraying all of the ones who appeared on screen, as demonic monsters.

I don’t think it’s bad, I liked it when I came out. I think the Shakespearean tone and much of the Norse stuff works really well. I had Hemsworth and Hiddleston and Hopkins lighting up the screen.

The issue with the movie is the Earth stuff, which doesn’t work. 
 

I think all of those phase one movies have lots of the elements that are the reasons for the MCU’s success, they just were not tight and had enough flaws that we look back at them less fondly. At the time though, in comparison to other super hero movies, they were pretty good 

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think pretty much all the elements for why the main characters worked were established in those earlier movies. They are not perfect but Iron Man, Cap and Thor set out the groundwork and did a lot of the heavy lifting that was improved upon by the Russos. 

Guess it depends a lot on the groundwork you're talking about. Cap 1 did a good job of setting up who Cap was - but then was basically ignored by Avengers 1. Iron Man did a pretty good job of setting up Tony Stark, a bit less so with Rhodey, and a totally shit job of doing Black Widow. Thor set up the world okay, but it didn't do anything great with Thor himself or his supporting cast save Loki - and didn't do Hawkeye any favors either. Avengers definitely did great things for Stark and did good for Hulk, but most everyone else got worse by comparison - especially in Avengers 2.

The Russos basically established the very competent, loyal and flawed version of Captain America that became the cornerstone of Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame. That character being flawed and not a set of jokes around him being a boy scout was pretty essential for any of those things to work - especially Civil War. That they also managed to flesh out Wanda, Vision, establish T'Challa and the Marvel Spider Man version, and even make Ant-Man kind of interesting was not just building on the success of others. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

8 hours ago, sifth said:

I really wish studios would stop over using CGI. I know practical effects aren’t cheap, but in the end they usually look more real. 

Or overusing bad CGI. I love it when it's there and you don't realize it because it's done well. Check out the VFX reel for season 1 of The Terror. It's amazing just how much of that show wasn't practical effects. 

Dune and Blade Runner 2049 also incorporated them pretty seamlessly. Obviously Avatar 2 was almost entirely green screen and it looks amazing. 

It also helps when you have a director and cinematographer who know how to block and light scenes correctly. 

[Heartofice]

I think that in terms of setting up the main characters, the tone and the style of the MCU, most of what is good is there in those early movies, it’s just that they are not perfect movies. The Russos took those ingredients and made something much more competent and complete with them. 
 

Just think about the any number of possible multiverses of early MCU movies and bad decisions that could have been made, that would have made creating those Russo movies impossible. 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think that in terms of setting up the main characters, the tone and the style of the MCU, most of what is good is there in those early movies, it’s just that they are not perfect movies. The Russos took those ingredients and made something much more competent and complete with them. 
 

Just think about the any number of possible multiverses of early MCU movies and bad decisions that could have been made, that would have made creating those Russo movies impossible. 

And I really disagree. The tone and style of the Russo movies compared with what came first really was different. I guess the main value is the action comedy kind of thing which Iron Man and then Avengers really set up - but otherwise the tone of, say, Thor 1 or even Iron Man 2 is very, very different from Winter Soldier/Civil War, and Winter Soldier/Civil War are a lot closer to IW/Endgame.