fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5441 ]

[ SECRET POST #5441 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5441 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I mean, yeah. I don't think this is spicy at all.
MCU is not GREAT cinema, but I believe all the movies in the franchise are at least decent with some really good entries and enjoyable for the average audience.
I haven't seen some of the last movies, but I bet it's more of the same with different characters/plotlines.
I think some people are burned out of MCU and they're harsher on it, but the overall quality is constant. Some movies are better, some are worse.

The real problem IMO is that Disney is too dominant as a company.

My main serious objection to the MCU creatively, separate from their position in the marketplace, is that I feel like the action scenes are too similar from movie to movie. And it's quite frustrating in a way, because they actually do a passable job of varying the genre and emotional tone of the movies - but then you get to the action scenes and it's always the same clangorous CGI smash-bang spectacle no matter what, regardless of whether it's Black Widow or Eternals, for example. The action style they use is kind of limited in the first place and it's definitely not improved by being used so many times in so many different movies.

AYART
I agree 100% with what you said.
For me the MCU is just more of the same. We have some titles with more fun snark and some titles with more " serious politics", but in the end it's just an excuse to have a big CGI fight in the end and make us care about the characters so we go watch the next assemble movie.
I think people, me included, are just tired of the formula. They made a good job with infinity war and setting up the cliffhanger, but that movie too seems an excuse to set up the stakes for the huge CGI battle in endgame.
They're not telling anything new, it's just pointless action movies. They're GOOD pointless action movies with lovable characters, but pointless nonetheless. And yeah, the action is repetitive and nothing that special, either.
The politics too are so diluded they don't tell you anything coherent nor audacious. And for that I absolutely blame Disney.
I think the only movie that tried and kind of succeded to do that was CATWS. They last tried a polical commentary with FATWS and it was such a mess... they did the bare minimum they could do and they did it badly. Such a disappointment.

Personally, the only movie I'm looking forward to in this phase is the Doctor Strange one. That's probably the only one that has the potential to do something innovative (story and action wise).
I'll watch the new Thor, too, and I think it'll be fun! But I don't expect anything more than the pointless fun I had with Thor:Ragnarok (I LOVE THAT MOVIE).

DA

But fun is a value all its own. Not every movie has to have a point. Pointless fun movies have a role, and it is an important role at that. People enjoy them. That means they have value.

NAYRT

I agree but I also think that the MCU movies often attempt to have a point, and they almost always execute it poorly, almost always to the detriment of the film, and it usually feels like it's in large part because of the broader links to the MCU and the commitment to the MCU house style.

Case in point here, Black Widow. Black Widow deals with intense themes of child trafficking and child abuse. But, while it raises those issues, it's basically incapable of handling them or doing anything meaningful with those issues. Instead it just falls back on trite commonplaces about the importance of family, and uses explosions to resolve moral issues. (And, in addition, the action scenes in it feel exactly the same as the action scenes in every other MCU movie.)

So, I mean, saying that they're just fun pointless action movies is fine as it goes, but the MCU movies feel like they're caught between wanting to be fun repetitive cookie-cutter action movies, and wanting each movie to be its own iteration with something unique to say.

NAYRT

>>the MCU movies often attempt to have a point, and they almost always execute it poorly, almost always to the detriment of the film
>>the MCU movies feel like they're caught between wanting to be fun repetitive cookie-cutter action movies, and wanting each movie to be its own iteration with something unique to say.
THIS. This is the real problem for me. And the Black Widow example is perfect in illustrating this.
I feel like "pure fun" movies like Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok are some of the best MCU has to offer because they're simply doing what they can and do best: entertain you without trying to prove a point.

AYART
I agree with you. In my first reply I said [MCU is not GREAT cinema, but I believe all the movies in the franchise are at least decent with some really good entries and enjoyable for the average audience.]
I enjoy them and I've watched almost all of them (I miss the Ethernals and Shang-Chi), but I'm kind of burned out because at the end it's almost always the same formula.
I believe the final nail in the coffin for me was FATWS because I expected too much, maybe. Everyone has a different point of saturation and I've finally reached mine. I enjoyed What if? immensely because I love canon divergence as a concept, but... I think I'm done with following all the movies.
I do believe that people are turning on MCU lately because of some of the same reasons as mine. But honestly IDK.

Bonus: I'm a lover of horrible horror movies that fall into the category of so bad it's so good, so I have nothing against pointless fun. :)

AYRT

I feel like I had a lot more fun with the action scenes in Birds of Prey - enjoyed them about 10x more than I've enjoyed the action scenes in any Marvel movie in a decade. It's such a shame.

(I was also pretty excited about the new Doctor Strange until I heard they were doing extensive reshoots, which seems like a bad sign)

Fun is a very subjective thing though. I have no interest in Birds of Prey at all.

Literally every movie has reshoots, though. And the more FX heavy a movie is, the more people they have to haul in for the reshoots and the more they have to spend. If there is a big several minutes long FX shot that doesn't work, and they need to re-storyboard, redo the FX, and restage the actors in it, that is easily a few weeks worth of work. It isn't an automatic redflag, on par with a Tranks, Lord and Miller, or Edwards level screw up, especially for FX heavy movie like Doc Strange. Just think how many big FX shots there must be on that.

AYART

YEAH, I loved the action scenes in Birds of Prey! They were really really fun to watch (IDK how to say it, but they were more physical? They had more weight? I almost felt the pain of those hits!)and actually laughed with delight at the cinema.
The movie in general was a hit and miss and had a serious problem with wasted potential, but I loved the action scenes!

You broke my heart with the news of reshooting of Doctor Strange. I didn't know... Thanks for the heads up. I'll probably still watch it, but I'll lower my expectations.

People complain about CGI fights, but we accept regular animation movies no problem and they don't get hit with the old but-nothing-matters-it-isn't-real schtick. CGI just lets us do stuff that would have been animated or done with stop motion miniatures. There is nothing wrong with a big CGI fight at the end.

AYART

As far as I'm concerned, it's not the CGI per se the real problem, it's the fact that the climax is ALWAYS a big fight in the end. I love the CGI in MCU because is top notch and in some movies (Doctor Strange in particular) it's incredibly mesmerizing and mind fucking. There are some iconic fights in MCU (for example, Steve&Bucky vs Tony in Civil War THAT WAS GOOD AND EMOTIONAL I LOVED IT), but more often than not, the fight scenes are really forgettable IMHO
I do feel though that sometimes the CGI is not always used at full potential. For context: I loved the final fight in What If? way more than most of the big fights in MCU because the animation was so colorful and dynamic and incredibily fun to watch!

I agree so much! I also agree with the anon above me.

Agree with anon above me that it’s not that the fights are CG, it’s that most of them are repetitive and boring. The only thing that I can really blame the CG aspect for is that because CG characters lack the physical limitations of human actors (or miniatures, or puppets, or anything else that exists in meatspace), producers and directors get lazy with it.

"but then you get to the action scenes and it's always the same clangorous CGI smash-bang spectacle no matter what, "

Fair. I just watched Shang-Chi, and I liked it a lot, but then they got to the end battle and it was such deeply generic cgi cheese that I almost fell asleep.

That’s fair enough, I guess. I personally got so immersed in the movie that even though I knew the dragon and monster were CGI, they didn’t register as fake while I was watching. And I thought they were animated very beautifully, especially the dragon.

This frequently happens to me when I’m watching something I really enjoy that has CGI, as long as the CGI isn’t cheap or bad looking.

Oh, the beasts were beautiful, I agree.

It was just that their action scene was so stretched out that I lost interest. (Which feels so deeply wrong when I type that out. Because they *were* beautiful.)

Absolutley agree. I remember watching Daredevil and the Hallway Fight was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. And in the movies, they do none of that.

My brother brought it up with Black Widow, that she was taking hits like a supersoldier when she should be getting hurt. Heck, Steve got pretty messed up in Winter Soldier but Black Widow takes multiple punches to the face and then self severs her own facial nerves but all she had a was a little tickle of blood.

Agreed. I liked the movie overall, but the way Natasha shrugged off things that should have seriously injured or even killed her was seriously distracting(and I think Honest Trailers even pointed out something similar, so it obviously wasn’t just distracting for me). I know she’s a highly trained assassin, and certified badass. But she’s not enhanced in any way that makes her beyond human, and she doesn’t have any superpower. I hadn’t really thought about it before people here started bringing up that all the fights in the MCU are pretty much the same, but Black Widow really lends credence to that, because they really do have her taking hits like she’s a supersoldier like you say.

The MCU needs some help with their power and damage scaling.

My issue isn't with the MCU. It may not be great artistic cinema but the movies are extremely enjoyable (leaving aside the mess that was Avengers: Endgame). My issue is with Disney's monopolistic behavior as a company.

AYART
Me too. This is another one of the reasons why I'm completely burned out of MCU.
And not only that, but other Disney products, too.
I can't really articulate my feelings regarding Disney as they are very complicated, but I'm deeply disturbed by their monopoly and influence. (Not only Disney's, other huge corporations', too)

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[ SECRET POST #5441 ]

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