MCU - This Thread Wasn’t Made For You

[IlyaP]

8 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

To be fair man, when Brie Larson is your main actor for promoting a film, your probably better off not having her promote to improve the films reception. 

*shrug* She is (to me) mega-hawt and incredibly cute, therefore: my eyeballs will watch anything featuring her. 

 

[IlyaP]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

I think they can be high art. The Marvels certainly isn't, though.

Absolutely correct. It's easily digestible, unremarkable but sufficiently entertaining and enjoyable pop.  

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, IlyaP said:

Absolutely correct. It's easily digestible, unremarkable but sufficiently entertaining and enjoyable pop.  

That doesn't really sell the movie. I can think of a million other movies out there that could easily be classed as enjoyable pop, but that hardly makes them good (could point to any of the DC movies and say the same). Maybe you don't expect more from your movies, and you can easily gloss over bad writing and poor plotting, but a lot of people do kind of expect a bit more. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

43 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

*shrug* She is (to me) mega-hawt and incredibly cute, therefore: my eyeballs will watch anything featuring her. 

 

Definitely dont wanna get dragged back into that discussion, but its not about her looks.... 

[karaddin]

I'm also so sick of this need to form a meta narrative about the success of a movie literally one to two days after it comes out, even if I understand where it comes from. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that I feel is hampering the ability for some movies to have longer than usual legs on a strong word of mouth response - the weak box office opening can become the only narrative there is about the movie, it's a failure.

I don't get out that much lately, and dragging myself out on opening weekend isn't something I feel like doing that much even when it's something I was quite looking forward to. Then this conversation sticks and it starts undermining my enthusiasm to go even though I know on a conscious level that it's dumb. It's happened with a couple of movies in the last year or two and I felt a little of it with this already as well that I'm trying to ignore.

Gotta give things a chance to succeed before deciding that they've failed.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, karaddin said:

It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that I feel is hampering the ability for some movies to have longer than usual legs on a strong word of mouth response

What strong word of mouth response is there to this movie outside of a couple of people here who were determined to like it no matter what?

Either way I think there are quite a few movies that generally tend to do pretty well due to word of mouth, usually they are smaller budget. When big movies do badly initially, it's usually for a reason as well. 

[karaddin]

10 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

What strong word of mouth response is there to this movie outside of a couple of people here who were determined to like it no matter what?

Either way I think there are quite a few movies that generally tend to do pretty well due to word of mouth, usually they are smaller budget. When big movies do badly initially, it's usually for a reason as well. 

I'm not saying there will be, I'm saying the avalanche of "this movie is a failure" articles started hitting my "recommended news story" feed on Friday Australian time. And I can understand the various things that go into both rushing the story out to try get eyeballs and algorithm optimization to increase the odds of Google deciding I should see it (I don't), but that doesn't make it actually healthy for your industry to have so much riding or dying like that.

And that's got nothing to do with this movie specifically and whether I'll like that or not, nor does it have anything to do with the politics of the movie and whether it aligns with mine. Movies that aren't for me should have just as much of a shot of finding success as those that are.

[3CityApache]

13 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

couple of people here who were determined to like it no matter what

Actually you seem more determined to hate it than others here determined to like it.

I don't know if I'm gonna like it or not, but I won't make up my mind until I see it, which I plan to do next weekend. Few friends who already seen it said it was funny and generally ok. So it's not like the reception is universally bad or something.

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

That doesn't really sell the movie.

Heh. I can see the posters now! 

"This movie is pop!"

"The Marvels [...] released [...] in cinemas this year."

"It's something [...] on screen."

Like when Jay Kristoff made fake book adverts using negative reviews from people upset by the swearing and sex in his books. And so on. 

[IlyaP]

I should go into film marketing, just so I can make anti-marketing to make @Heartofice laugh!

(Not the worst reason for a career change!)

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, 3CityApache said:

Actually you seem more determined to hate it than others here determined to like it.

I don't know if I'm gonna like it or not, but I won't make up my mind until I see it, which I plan to do next weekend. Few friends who already seen it said it was funny and generally ok. So it's not like the reception is universally bad or something.

Oh I’m sure I won’t like it very much, but the thing about MCU movies is they are almost never completely terrible, they have a system in place that prevents total failure, but also prevents brilliance. They are excellent at mediocrity, safe mediocrity. 
 

The last few Marvel movies, outside of maybe Guaridans 3, have all been of that same quality, forgettable nonsense, not offensively bad, but not really doing anything interesting to make themselves memorable. 
 

Quantumania is maybe the most recent movie that was close to actually be BAD IMO, and even then it had a few moments of fun to make you not notice. I don’t doubt that will be the same with The Marvels 

[IlyaP]

24 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Quantumania is maybe the most recent movie that was close to actually be BAD IMO, and even then it had a few moments of fun to make you not notice. I don’t doubt that will be the same with The Marvels 

Quantumania is still a...baffling series of decisions that are completely at odds with the low-key stakes and tone of Ant-Man movies. Such a bizarre set of choices to make.

[sifth]

10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

Quantumania is still a...baffling series of decisions that are completely at odds with the low-key stakes and tone of Ant-Man movies. Such a bizarre set of choices to make.

It was the first MCU movie, where I could tell everyone was not on set at the same time. I remember when William Jackson Harper showed up. They would always hard cut between him and Paul Rudd, never showing both actors in the same shot. It was embarrassingly amateur film making.

[Arakasi]

Well count my wife and myself as two off the Marvel train. For a while there we did watch the Disney plus series but it just got too much and the backlog kept piling up. We’ll probably watch the 1-2 best movies and maybe we’ll do one series a year but it has to be compelling. Heck we watched Loki and felt zero interest diving into Loki season 2. That being said have two kids makes tv time very limited.

[IlyaP]

45 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

Well count my wife and myself as two off the Marvel train. For a while there we did watch the Disney plus series but it just got too much and the backlog kept piling up. We’ll probably watch the 1-2 best movies and maybe we’ll do one series a year but it has to be compelling. Heck we watched Loki and felt zero interest diving into Loki season 2. That being said have two kids makes tv time very limited.

The first season of Loki works much better if one understands that the two seasons are two halves of a novel - something the writers have regularly stressed in interviews. 

 

[dbunting]

I watched Marvels over the weekend and didn't dis like it? It was perfectly fine outside of a few issues, one of which made me wanna leave, but that's just me and my issues.

Spoiler

IMO The bollywood sing along was fucking horrible. Who in the hell thought that was ever going to work? For me it was worse than the horrible CGI/ repeating GIF waterfall dance in Black Panther.

The cats magically showing up just in time to be heroes was a bit much.

Finally, the end made no sense, why didn't she close the jump point from the other side? Did I miss something where this wasn't possible?

Of course loved seeing Beast at the end

I liked the actress that plays Ms Marvel, think she does a good job at the wide eyed hero worshiping and being optimistic. I may have watch Ms Marvel now.

One thing that was kind of weird, when Captain Marvel was in street clothes on the other planet she looked very petite, but in the Marvel outfit she looks much bigger, was a little distracting but not a big deal.

[baxus]

9 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Well count my wife and myself as two off the Marvel train. For a while there we did watch the Disney plus series but it just got too much and the backlog kept piling up. We’ll probably watch the 1-2 best movies and maybe we’ll do one series a year but it has to be compelling. Heck we watched Loki and felt zero interest diving into Loki season 2. That being said have two kids makes tv time very limited.

This sounds very familiar.  

No way I'm watching all the backlog of mediocre (at best) shows just so that i can keep up. I still catch the movies once I can stream them and the moment I can't keep up that way I'll stop watching completely.

8 hours ago, IlyaP said:

The first season of Loki works much better if one understands that the two seasons are two halves of a novel - something the writers have regularly stressed in interviews. 

I don't have to know that. Directors, producers, showrunners and whoever is in charge need to make a good film or TV series on their own. If they rely on me watching writers' interviews so that I can "get it", they are doing a piss poor job of making the show/movie.

[Heartofice]

9 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Well count my wife and myself as two off the Marvel train. For a while there we did watch the Disney plus series but it just got too much and the backlog kept piling up. We’ll probably watch the 1-2 best movies and maybe we’ll do one series a year but it has to be compelling. Heck we watched Loki and felt zero interest diving into Loki season 2. That being said have two kids makes tv time very limited.

I think if you have limited time in your life, there is very little in the Disney+ MCU catalogue that feels unmissable. I enjoyed Loki on the whole, it's probably the best of the recent tv shows, but it's hardly perfect. There are also some dire crap like Secret Invasion and She-Hulk which just seem like a total waste of everyone's time.

There are a lot of people making videos about how the MCU can pull it all back and bring the enthusiasm back. I guess they are going in the right direction by reducing the flow of constant content.

I think what they really need to do is find some genuinely compelling characters to build their new franchise around. It's baffling that they thought the heroes from Phase 4 could carry even their own movies, let alone a franchise. 

[mormont]

 

7 hours ago, dbunting said:

I watched Marvels over the weekend and didn't dis like it? It was perfectly fine outside of a few issues, one of which made me wanna leave, but that's just me and my issues.

  Reveal hidden contents

IMO The bollywood sing along was fucking horrible. Who in the hell thought that was ever going to work? For me it was worse than the horrible CGI/ repeating GIF waterfall dance in Black Panther.

The cats magically showing up just in time to be heroes was a bit much.

Finally, the end made no sense, why didn't she close the jump point from the other side? Did I miss something where this wasn't possible?

Of course loved seeing Beast at the end

I liked the actress that plays Ms Marvel, think she does a good job at the wide eyed hero worshiping and being optimistic. I may have watch Ms Marvel now.

One thing that was kind of weird, when Captain Marvel was in street clothes on the other planet she looked very petite, but in the Marvel outfit she looks much bigger, was a little distracting but not a big deal.

Spoiler

The film is a bit goofy sometimes, but that's fine with me, and it's the tone it's going for. I honestly wanted them to lean into the musical scene harder. It worked beautifully for me, charming and fun. 

Which goes to the main point, which is that if you didn't like the Ms. Marvel show, you're not likely to enjoy this movie. But if you did like it, you'll probably love the movie. Which is good, because it's clear that Marvel both should and will make Iman Vellani a major part of their plans moving forward.

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

I don't have to know that. Directors, producers, showrunners and whoever is in charge need to make a good film or TV series on their own. If they rely on me watching writers' interviews so that I can "get it", they are doing a piss poor job of making the show/movie.

The presence of a cliff-hanger isn't sufficient communication of the show being more than one season? Or have I misunderstood the complaint? There was a cliff-hanger, ergo, the show was going to be more than one season.

Edited November 14, 2023 by IlyaP