Marvel Comics on Film

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#326 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:36 am

I thought they learned their lesson in the early aughts when the Lime->Green Apple outrage sparked the restoration back to Lime, but apparently they reverted back in '13?! Shoulda seen the social apocalypse coming then- or more importantly, Alan Moore should have

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swo17
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#327 Post by swo17 » Sun Oct 11, 2020 12:50 am

Yet another development The Social Network failed to predict

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domino harvey
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#328 Post by domino harvey » Sun Oct 11, 2020 2:05 am

I prefer them to the lime Skittles. Mod Approved Green Apple #maga

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R0lf
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#329 Post by R0lf » Sun Oct 11, 2020 9:38 am

soundchaser wrote:
Sat Oct 10, 2020 8:32 pm
Most movies are denials of reality and often provide sensational solutions. Did Astaire/Rogers musicals cause FDR to get re-elected?

And more importantly, it was the replacement of the Lime Skittle with Green Apple that caused Trump.
Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, and Spider-Man are all, literally, avatars for the American flag. From their creation the characters have always been about American jingoism. And the movies have always been about soft selling the military industrial complex to kids.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#330 Post by RIP Film » Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:24 am

Doesn't seem very controversial or anything new. Marc Maron makes similar points on his podcast, most articulately in the episode with Dale Behran, author of "It Came from Something Awful". Certainly you can see correlatives in the increased seriousness of comic culture with an avoidance of reality, if not seeing reality as something malleable altogether (Qanon and growing conspiracy culture). Superhero stuff might normalize our disengagement but I don't think it can be credited for it, and I don't think Moore believes that either; his argument appears more to be that the medium has changed and its role is no longer what it once was.

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feihong
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#331 Post by feihong » Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:20 am

I kind of enjoyed Black Panther––mostly for the actors and their energy––and for some reason I like the weirdness and goofiness of the Thor films (unlike anyone else on the internet I had a good time watching the 2nd Thor movie, when he started throwing the hammer through the holes between different dimensions), and I like the Spider-man movies...the rest leave me mostly indifferent. But I am so far very beguiled by the first 2 episodes of Wandavision. It's so far a bit like the Prisoner, but if he was stuck in a television set (I guess he was, in a way). The marriage of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch in the comics has often been treated as an opportunity to play with the metanarrative possibilities of the genre, and this show is very meta in its approach, giving us a Vision and Wanda Maximoff stuck in a prison of old television tropes. The old-fashioned TV material is treated very cannily, so that when the laughtrack rolls out––as it does frequently––I find myself laughing not at the joke itself, but the era-specific trope the joke is referencing. Katherine Hahn's repeated reference to her "ol' ball & chain" husband who never appears is one of these interesting elements that has both a metanarrative humor and a kind of sinister implication for the actual narrative of the show. The first 2 episodes play mostly as straight television episodes from the past, interrupted occasionally by elements of another reality starting to break through. And the acting is very precise, without seeming arch. Paul Bettany is very good in this, and so is Elizabeth Olson––they really seem to enjoy doing the sitcom routines. There is a sharpness to the two of them, and a sense of fun that I wish we could have seen before this. Of course, that would have required them to be present in more than a scene or two of the previous movies, and they weren't very much. As I watch, I shore up my memory of the previous movies with decades of comic narratives about the characters, and I don't know to what extent that increases my appreciation of what's going on in this show. I'm not sure someone less invested in the Vision and Scarlet Witch characters from other media would enjoy the show quite as much––also, if you hadn't seen a lot of old sitcoms––and I'm given to understand many people haven't in recent years, I don't know how much you'd get out of the deliberately hollow acting out of their conventions that's on display in this series.

There is a sense of the show that makes it seem a little like David Lynch lite, but I don't find myself too worked up about it. Definitely this show is going to resolve into a traditional story at some point, rather than be left with any ambiguity, but in that sense it reminds me more of old-school science fiction stories than it does Blue Velvet. I think it seems pretty worthwhile. I'm a little impressed how much the Marvel superhero movies improve with just a little injection of fun into the mix.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#332 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:52 pm

feihong wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:20 am
But I am so far very beguiled by the first 2 episodes of Wandavision. ...
There is a sense of the show that makes it seem a little like David Lynch lite, but I don't find myself too worked up about it. Definitely this show is going to resolve into a traditional story at some point, rather than be left with any ambiguity, but in that sense it reminds me more of old-school science fiction stories than it does Blue Velvet. I think it seems pretty worthwhile. I'm a little impressed how much the Marvel superhero movies improve with just a little injection of fun into the mix.
I don't think I'm really spoiling anything about Wandavision here, but just in case...
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Yeah, it was obvious they were going to resolve things at some point, but they definitely jumped the gun on that process. I, too, really enjoyed the first two episodes. I enjoyed the third much less. And now the fourth, in which expository characters explain most everything, has turned it into a typical Marvel movie, just even more bland.

It was a neat concept, but they clearly did not trust their audience enough to stick with the mystery for very long. It's like if Twin Peaks revealed the killer halfway through the first season.

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feihong
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#333 Post by feihong » Tue Feb 02, 2021 5:46 pm

True. It's a commentary on Marvel movies in general, perhaps, to say that it is all you could expect from them, but I think it was pretty much all we could expect from them.

I like most of the 4th episode, though; the parts where Darcy Lewis and Agent Jimmy Woo get invested in watching the Wandavision TV show––invested in the content beyond the calamity they're witnessing. It's maybe giving the game away in terms of what Marvel movies want but aren't really able to achieve; none of it can ever really end up being that emotional.

This is a technique the comics have sort of mastered, but which remains a little out of the reach of the motion pictures––the off-screen emotional journey. Yet it's something they're always trying. Characters frequently fall in love in Marvel comics mostly off-panel. As a reader––especially a young reader––you built the moments of their romance you saw upwards in your imagination until they seemed like full-blown romances. Danny Rand and Misty Knight; Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy; Scott Summers and Jean Grey; Logan and Jean Grey, Logan and Mariko Yashida, Logan and...each relationship depended for the most part on a monthly publishing schedule to sort of roll over your doubts and objections. Believe, dear reader, that this love is not only real; it's the realest of real, it's true love. But when you go back and read the comics, it's hard to find any moments where that gets sold to you, on the page. Plots don't hinge on the romantic angle (except when they're killing Gwen Stacy, which is too little, too late, really), and we don't see anything play out on-page––we just hear characters thinking about how they love this person or that person. In fact, Vision and Wanda Maximoff were one of the few couples that got a lot of melodramatic moments, and a romance that did provide the anchor for a lot of plots in the comics. So it's a little ironic that the relationship they're really trying to play as an off-screen emotional journey is Wanda's and Vision's. And I think we see some of the problem with that, here. This show has to do double-duty, providing a a back-filled sense of Wand and Vision's romantic relationship and also giving us the aftermath of it––because the previous movies weren't interested in doing any more than the off-screen romance. So I think we're seeing the result of a lot of narrative compression––after a couple of episodes of "weird," they've got to get back to the main story.

It's a shame that we can't now follow Darcy and Agent Woo, spellbound by their Wandavision viewing, back into their own lives, where we see the dramas of Wandavision playing out in the real world, or something surreal like that. Now each of them has a canned significant other, and we hear a laugh track behind their lives which they usually don't notice, but which bothers them occasionally. We get just a taste of that when Wanda's birthing scene inspires Jimmy Woo to talk with a kind of bland, everyday inspiration about maybe having kids of his own; the TV is reaching for them and getting its tendrils into their minds. Nothing will be made of this, I think, but in the comics, Jimmy Woo is the leader of a terrorist cell of 60s sci-fi reject superheroes called the Agents of Atlas. I don't imagine we'll be seeing their television show any time soon.

I suppose the problem with expecting something you could call "good" in an unqualified way from these Marvel properties is that they are always serving two masters at once; their inspiration comes, necessarily, from the classic comics, which they adapt in a loose way. But the adaptations have to be aggressively streamlined, because the movies have to appeal to literally everybody, everywhere, and because they have to make digestible a 60-year publication history of ragged but insistently rigid continuity, in a ghostly, half-life form. So we get Vision and Wanda's relationship, in film and on television, but it has none of the elements from the original stories that made their relationship interesting (and that interest was for readers of an earlier era, as well; their relationship was pretty much over by the time I started reading comics, about 35 years ago). The show makes new items of interest, but because they are bereft of any real history between the characters, but at the same time dependent on us knowing the history between the characters...it's hard to unpack how you're supposed to feel about all of it. It feels like they are trying to build to the next big multi-film event, which it seems might be an adaptation of Secret Invasion or House of M––or maybe Wandavision is their adaptation of House of M. Lots of pop film nowadays tries to rely on postmodern subtext to take the place of actual, step-by-step storytelling––and the MCU movies have been maybe the most successful in streamlining this approach. But the results definitely show through here. It would be so much nicer if the story went full postmodern, but then, of course, they'll lose their larger audience, who already felt like three episodes of television from past decades was too much. But it would have been fun to see everything gradually going askew as Wanda tries to hold together the sitcoms; kind of like a nuclear-stakes Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Or something where Wanda has to sort of emotionally engage the real world, and instead of editing out anomalies as she does throughout the show, she actually changes the channel, and everyone is disoriented, being recast in new roles. I guess there's still some potential for that; it looks like we haven't seen yet the episode where Vision goes out trick-or-treating, dressed as himself––is that supposed to be patterned after the Wonder Years? Perhaps at the end of the day, what I want and won't be able to get in this show is a "real world" outside of Wanda's TV town that quakes as it is infected with the same craziness that's going on in Wanda's bubble. It won't happen, and the characters from the outside world have to play the "straight man" role to the craziness in Wanda's mind––which is a little strange, considering how this film references the fact that half the people of this "real world" just got reconsituted with a snap of Iron Man's fingers. But hey, whatever. At the end of the day, I feel like I feel about most of the Marvel movies; I don't hate it. I did miss Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany doing their more inspired TV revue in this last episode, though. They had a chance in there for actual chemistry, in between the superhero antics.

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colinr0380
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#334 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Feb 04, 2021 12:53 pm

I have not seen Wandavision but in a world in which the gobsmacking Heil Honey I'm Home exists, I cannot imagine the satirical sitcom format being pushed much further.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#335 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:06 pm

RIP Film wrote:
Sun Oct 11, 2020 11:24 am
Certainly you can see correlatives in the increased seriousness of comic culture with an avoidance of reality, if not seeing reality as something malleable altogether (Qanon and growing conspiracy culture).
With WandaVision itself exploring this theme, has Marvel become outwardly self-aware? The show is clearly some kind of commentary on escapism, but does this make it a meta-textual commentary? An exploration of the "avoidance of reality" of its own brand?

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#336 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:23 pm

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:06 pm
With WandaVision itself exploring this theme, has Marvel become outwardly self-aware? The show is clearly some kind of commentary on escapism, but does this make it a meta-textual commentary? An exploration of the "avoidance of reality" of its own brand?
As the show gets dumber and dumber, I now feel I was off base here.

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thirtyframesasecond
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#337 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon Feb 22, 2021 4:27 pm

Not worth it, then? I hear good things about Kathryn Hahn, who's about as reliable a scene stealer as say a Catherine Keener was 15-20 years ago. I don't think Disney Plus offers much otherwise. Not interested in the Marvel series generally, and am generally incredibly lukewarm on Star Wars. I wonder if they'll have to offer some of their material out to Amazon/Sky eventually.

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feihong
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#338 Post by feihong » Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:00 pm

I've been finding it worth seeing so far. With respect for their position, I don't see the show getting "dumber and dumber," as TheKieslowskiHaze says––though there is a fight in the show between the more energized sitcom recreation content and the somewhat standard superhero movie that winds like a snake through this narrative. I think the show is making an interesting assertion, identifying obsession with nostalgia as a way to process grief. The last episode was much more superhero-adventure–centric again (it has gone back and forth throughout the last few episodes, dipping back into sitcom territory as Wanda repeatedly rejects reality), but it ended with a very nice, subtle suggestion that it's not the one who retreats into that nostalgia that really benefits from it––it's one who creates that nostalgia (or at least, the one who programs it). So the real villain of the piece seems to be Nickelodeon's Nick-at-Night, or television in general. It's not all perfectly delineated––and apparently they planned for longer episodes, but it seems like the series has been recut to add to the episode count, which means that there is one conspicuous episode some of us were lamenting weeks ago, which was only about super cops doing superhero stuff outside of the television nostalgia "zone" where most of the story takes place––but, that aside, it's pretty interesting and pretty funny, and I think Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen and Kathryn Hahn all do great things acting-wise, operating in a dizzying amount of different modes and realities. The supporting cast from the more "serious Marvel movie" is also appealing, and as a fan of her from the comics, I was delighted to see that
SpoilerShow
"Spectrum" or "Photon" or "Captain Marvel" Monica Rambeau would actually become a superhero in the show, instead of them just inserting a bunch of teases that she would be one later on.
I do think there's a certain amount of interest to chew upon here, along with the interesting self-reflexive idea of characters pulled from the comics, stretched to the breaking point as they are exploited across multiple mediums, kind of coming apart at the seams. Things did get crazier after episode 4, and so far I am still very interested. I think the show also makes a productive move in distancing the superhero and multiple-reality trappings of the show from post-9-11 militarism––the military is here, but this time as out-and-out villains,
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who try to nuke Wanda's TV town with a drone, because she stole the Vision back to be her husband again when they were rebuilding him as an awesome new weapon.
It's a nice step away from the Iron Man/extramilitary industral complex origins of the films. I think the series has endeavored to say quite a lot with its themes, and those themes are more broadly critical than those the Marvel movies have presented in the past. There's still a lot of metafictional play going on in the series. I've never liked Paul Bettany so much in a film before (well, maybe in Master and Commander). And the surprise appearance of
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Evan Peters, sort of recast from the Fox X-men movies as Wanda's brother Quicksilver,
is still a really cool move.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#339 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:13 pm

feihong wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 5:00 pm
I've been finding it worth seeing so far. With respect for their position, I don't see the show getting "dumber and dumber," as TheKieslowskiHaze says––though there is a fight in the show between the more energized sitcom recreation content and the somewhat standard superhero movie that winds like a snake through this narrative.
My problem is that, in this fight, the "standard superhero movie" is winning more and more in each successive episode. The mystery, tonal complexity, and genuine humor of the first two episodes has almost entirely vanished.

I am not a fan of Marvel, so this certainly isn't aimed at me. But I'd thought, after seeing reactions to the first two episodes, that this was something interesting and different. That's sadly proving not the case. It's fine, I guess, if you like superhero stuff. I don't. As David Lynch said when pressed about why he didn't like Malick's Tree of Life, "It's just not my cup of tea."

I'll keep watching before passing an ultimate judgment. Maybe they'll wrap it up in an interesting way.

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knives
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#340 Post by knives » Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:16 pm

I kind of wish Wandavision leaned more heavily into the history of sitcoms. The first episode, for example didn’t feel specifically ‘50s enough. The working class nature of The Homeymooners and The Goldbergs or even the apartment setting of I love Lucy. I also would have loved if they shot the episodes in the style of their respective shows. A live television master shot style would have left the climax with Melamed in the first episode all the creepier. That said, the cast immediately sells it as a real sitcom and a Prisoner type rape of the psyche.

The second episode by being specifically a Bewitched parody does wonders and is greatly benefited by how specific its narrative is. It really is like summing up old school Nick at Nite. Paul Bettany also does a great drunk David Bowie impression. The third episode lost me a bit as the stylistic premise began to take a back seat to some larger plotting which is frankly not as interesting. It also doesn’t help I don’t know many domestic ‘70s sitcoms compared with from earlier decades. As a result the decade specific jokes fell flat outside of some aesthetic ones, there are a couple of edits that scream the decade and the use of color in the more subtle moments is fairly brilliant. I suppose this could serve as a good jumping off point as to what shows to sample.

In any case I wish instead they were confident to have a much slower undoing of reality with that plot only being revealed in the entering of the modern era. As is it too quickly reveals itself as a less satisfying version of that one Justice League episode stretched across 4 hours. It’s a disappointing reveal that ignores Lynch’s understanding that the audience is more in love with the mystery than the answer. I just wish they delayed the fourth episode which over explains everything.

The fifth episode really highlights this as the Full House, kind of a comfortable irony, parody and the breaks in it communicate all of the themes and concerns of the episode perfectly. While the “real world” scenes are fine and it’s always nice to see Randall Park and Kat Dennings, but they just detract from the mystery, humor, and worst of all themes of the show.

I really adore Malcolm in the Middle and Gilmore Girls so sort of skipping parts of the ‘90s for an early aughts episode (with flavors of Boy Meets World) made episode six an instant sell to me and even the ‘real’ world stuff reaches kind of a platonic ideal as it develops a purpose outside of repeating back to us what the sitcom more effectively conveys. This is what Civil War could have been. An argument against the assumptions Marvel has been built upon.

The seventh episode is the first to really surpass its inspirations, but that late aught style of sitcoms is largely terrible so it using those weaknesses to get real explicit about grief was always going to be a win. The real world stuff being all narrative and no theme really makes the episode stop in its place though. The disconnect in quality between the sitcom and the ‘real’ world has never been more clear. What really furthers these thoughts for me is that the ending to this episode and the lead in to the next are structured in such a way as to suggest the original vision having us stay inside WandaVision until the end here with episode four and the other outside stuff playing as the real episodes 7 and 8 before the inevitable conclusion.

Speaking of, eight brings up a lot of good things and in its small scale I Am a Ghost workings it achieves something really great. It’s a standout episode that achieves all of its goals and even surpasses the expectations made for the series so far. Along with the first two episodes it’s the highlight of the series and a promise of the potential it had. It doesn’t exactly duplicate therapeutic language like Mendoza’s film does, but it at least working towards that direction. My only complaint is with considering the more opaque role our villainess has in the series what they do with her in the conclusion seems excessively cruel and a missed opportunity to use that character in an engaging way in the future.

That makes the finale just a downer for succumbing to dumb beat ‘em up CGI nonsense. I’d much rather an ending that deals with the themes of the series than kaboom as it does in two of the three strands.
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Also, did anyone else feel like with the kids they were going to go with a transgender reveal on Wanda? They seem to be mirrors of herself and her brother with that underlined by their transformation on account of their feelings and all the stuff with the Singer version of Quicksilver. Obviously they nip that early on by clarifying that the powers for Wanda came later in life leaving this as just one more potential avenue left unexplored.
This is a deeply frustrating series because of how much more ambitious it is compared to the rest of Marvel and does succeed in some of those ambitions. Here is them going so long without action scenes and big effects attempting even if not succeeding in telling a more human story. Yet it so forcefully states the limitations of their model where they can’t even match Adult Swim jokes and random episodes of old television shows with the same premise. The stuff on grief and the ability for art, even low art, to play a therapeutic role in developing that grief into something healthy. The show gets so close and that’s the disappointment.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#341 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Jul 16, 2021 11:04 am

I always wondered about this when similar incidents have happened, but James Gunn discussed what happened (briefly) with his life after he was fired for his tweets: "It was unbelievable. And for a day, it seemed like everything was gone. Everything was gone," Gunn told the New York Times. “I was going to have to sell my house. I was never going to be able to work again. That’s what it felt like.”

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#342 Post by cdnchris » Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:03 pm

Trailer for the new Spider Man movie, No Way Home.

Spoilering this just in case
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I like these recent takes on Spider Man, the Spider-Verse one, and the first couple Raimi ones, so seeing that this one will be crossing all of those and will have Molina back as Dr. Octopus (and I would assume Dafoe as Green Goblin) has me cautiously optimistic.

Edit: And I guess there's an Elctro reference in here as well, so I would assume Jamie Foxx is in it. I didn't like the Garfield ones so that takes my excitement down a notch...

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#343 Post by RIP Film » Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:42 pm

What’s with the Home theme to the titles? Kind of goofy.

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knives
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#344 Post by knives » Tue Aug 24, 2021 6:39 am

SpoilerShow
It does mean though we'll probably get a multitude of JJ’s though which I’m okay with.

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Pavel
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#345 Post by Pavel » Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:23 am

cdnchris wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:03 pm
Trailer for the new
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I like these recent takes on Spider Man, the Spider-Verse one, and the first couple Raimi ones, so seeing that this one will be crossing all of those and will have Molina back as Dr. Octopus (and I would assume Dafoe as Green Goblin) has me cautiously optimistic.

Edit: And I guess there's an Elctro reference in here as well, so I would assume Jamie Foxx is in it. I didn't like the Garfield ones so that takes my excitement down a notch...
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Thomas Haden Church's Sandman and Rhys Ifans' Lizard are also supposedly going to be in the film, so some are speculating that Michael Keaton will also return to fill in the last spot in the Sinister Six villain group. They're not in the trailer but there have been rumors for a while now that Maguire and Garfield will also return.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#346 Post by cdnchris » Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:00 am

SpoilerShow
Disappointingly I'm sure a lot of these (if not all) will just be cameos. Has the potential to be fun at the very least.

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Pavel
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#347 Post by Pavel » Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:10 am

cdnchris wrote:
Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:00 am
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Disappointingly I'm sure a lot of these (if not all) will just be cameos. Has the potential to be fun at the very least.
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I hope that at least one of them will be the main villain — most likely Dafoe or Molina

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knives
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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#348 Post by knives » Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:49 pm

SpoilerShow
They’re leading with Molina so I’m assuming it will be him. Too bad it comes across as them chasing Into the Spiderverse though.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#349 Post by cdnchris » Tue Sep 07, 2021 12:41 pm

Took the kids to Shang-Chi this past weekend. It was okay. My kids really liked it (my daughter isn't into superhero stuff but she was especially taken by it) but I found it fairly bland. I'm not well versed in wuxia like films, but I think that's what the film was ultimately going for: it was a fantasy and the fight scenes looked like they were inspired by things like A Touch of Zen and the like, with one scene featuring fighters jumping around on bamboo scaffolding. They look to be done primarily using wires but CGI is obviously being used as well, and they're a bit more elaborate. Still, the fight scenes were quite good, an early one between Leung's villain and his wife-to-be coordinated like a dance, and then one in a narrow bus was nicely choreographed. But the film ends up being a bland hero-origin film and then concludes with all sorts of noise and giant monsters and such. I think once certain motivations are revealed and the truth about some characters come out it becomes more interesting, but all of this is only revealed during the last act and up to that point the story doesn't have much of a focus, nothing to really grab you since the film holds you at a distance until the last act.

I don't know who Simu Liu is, admittedly, other than the fact he's Canadian (so good on him in landing this big role!) but I thought he was good. He's a bit laid back, but that's what the character initially calls for so it works, and when he needs to come out and be a hero he does it. I liked Awkwafina; she has the comedic sidekick role that could be cut out and not impact the film much, but she keeps things at least amusing when the film feels to lag. Tony Leung is the stand out. I can see why they cast him. His "villain" is driven by a lost love and no one does painful longing like Leung. He's good and the film always becomes more interesting when he's there.

Also, they do address the whole Mandarin from Iron Man 3 thing, though it ends up being a bit of a negative:
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Ben Kingsley shows up in the film, his character having been abducted by Leung's Mandarin because of his "unflattering" portrayal of him. It's amusing at first, but his character ends up becoming linked to the main story and the "joke" gets a bit stale rather quickly. But hey, I'm all for Kingsley getting a steady paycheck if that's what this leads to.
There's probably something more interesting there, but the film ends up just feeling like a set-up more than anything else, and that's something the Marvel movies have actually managed to avoid, even at their worst.

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Re: Marvel Comics on Film

#350 Post by cdnchris » Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:38 pm



In regards to my concerns about any special appearances in the new Spider-Man simply being cameos
SpoilerShow
I was pleasantly surprised to see that was not the case at all! Not only do Dafoe and Molina get big parts,, Foxx. Ifans and Church also get a lot of screen time, though the latter two mostly supplying their voices to CGI creatures onscreen. Even the other big appearances get a lot of screen time, a surprise for me because I figured one of them would have been only game for a walk-on, if appearing at all.

This all probably leads to the film being a bit too long, though, and there's some exposition there only for people who haven't seen the other films, some of which is awkwardly inserted.
To the film's credit, it really could have just phoned it in but it's not just fan servicing (though the parts that are there specifically for that reason stand out, one sequence going on for far too long with too many winks). It takes its premise down an interesting, even thoughtful, path. Still, having said that, I did feel some glee in seeing everyone again, even from the films I didn't care that much for.

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