Cinematic Civil War:MCU vs DCCU - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 25

[Iceman]

Do you know what a Dutch angle is? Because the movie is full of them.

The Avengers always looked like a mishmash to me. Somethings looked better then others (Hulk good, Thor a bit cheap, Iron Man good, Cap awful), which is why the TV comments always made sense to me. Well that, and the lack of strong stunts. The CGI combat looks great, but how did they make Cap look so lame, especially with how he has turned out since.

I still feel awkward when I see Cap in the first Avengers. Just glad that it was a one off.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

The Thor vs Iron Man fight in Avengers was staged and shot really... unimaginatively. Not necessarily bad just bland. The final battle was awesome though.

I agree that the practical stunt work was really poor and again, unimaginative.


Logan has great cinematography. Especially the scenes in the first third. Sun bleached and oppressive. Like hell on Earth.

Thor vs Iron Man is so cringe worthy to watch these days. It hasn't aged well.

 

[Flint Marko]

"Cringe worthy?" That's a bit much.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

The hand to hand combat looks so clunky and terrible.

 

[NealKenneth]

The tussle between Thor, Iron Man and Cap is gorgeous and as fun now as it was in 2012.

I agree that the MCU occasionally suffers from visual blandness. The airport scene from CW, for example, is very very flat at times and the background is basically a whiteboard. Okay, at least the colors of the costumes could pop out against a white background like that...but unfortunately they also chose to mute the colors of the costumes so much that that doesn't happen.

MoS as a positive example though? The visuals give me a headache...didn't some theaters give it warnings for motion sickness like Cloverfield too?

 

[OutOfBoose]

Thor vs Iron Man is so cringe worthy to watch these days. It hasn't aged well.

I watched it recently it was great.

 

[kguillou]

This is why I'm slightly worried for Infinity War. Not necessarily in terms of quality but how the film will look. To me, Inifnity War should be a visual feast of a film. As an intergalactic epic, it should look like the Man of Steel prologue OR how GoTG 2 looked. But I have a feeling theyre gonna use the same grayed out filming technique that Marvel seems to be in love with for some reason.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Count me as someone else who's not that hype for Homecoming.
Obviously Im gonna see it, but Im just not that excited
-I have no love for the TASM series
-I dont mind most of the comic changes
-I liked Holland in CW

But idk i'm just not hyped. I'm sure it'll be fine at the least

I am the same despite Spidey being my 2nd favourite superhero ever. I love Keaton as well. But don't like The Vulture as a character. And I loved Holland as Spidey in CW. I just can't get hyped for Homecoming at all though.

 

[Kane52630]

Such a great shot.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

That fight was great, still one of my favorite scenes. I'm glad they weren't weightless cartoon characters throwing each other around and destroying massive cities...

 

[DACrowe]

I actually liked The Avengers fights because it wasn't trying to surpass what came before. It was offering the first real take on heroes fighting heroes, and then teaming up. The cinematography throughout the whole movie is suspect, and Joss will never be considered a visualist, but he got the iconography just right.

I actually think what some call disappointing or too much practical work has the opposite effect on me. Other than the airplane fight in Civil War, no superhero throw down has captured the level of gee whiz fun Whedon did (other than probably Sam Raimi before him in SM2 and even SM3). Now to compete or be "better" than The Avengers, most superhero films pile on mountains of CGI and explosions, and flying cars. But it is a law of diminishing returns and frankly ends up looking like a video game after a while, as in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Thor 2, Avengers 2, and the third acts of The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy--even though I really like those las two movies!

 

[MadVillainy]

This is why I'm slightly worried for Infinity War. Not necessarily in terms of quality but how the film will look. To me, Inifnity War should be a visual feast of a film. As an intergalactic epic, it should look like the Man of Steel prologue OR how GoTG 2 looked . But I have a feeling theyre gonna use the same grayed out filming technique that Marvel seems to be in love with for some reason.

Dear God no

 

[kguillou]

Dear God no

Lmao no to either? Why not?

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Such a great shot.

Great shot, and I still love that fight scene, still one of the MCU's best fight scenes for me.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

This is why I'm slightly worried for Infinity War. Not necessarily in terms of quality but how the film will look. To me, Inifnity War should be a visual feast of a film. As an intergalactic epic, it should look like the Man of Steel prologue OR how GoTG 2 looked. But I have a feeling theyre gonna use the same grayed out filming technique that Marvel seems to be in love with for some reason.

Agree about Guardians but disagree about MOS. Unfortunately the DP for IW is the same one from TWS and CW and those movies looked dull.

 

[The Endless]

Such a great shot.

Yea it is a great shot.

It's just the way the fighting itself was shot I don't really like. You get a medium range shot of Iron Man firing his repulsors. Then a medium range shot of Thor getting hit by the repulsors. Then a medium range shot of Thor throwing Mjolnir. Then a medium range shot of Iron Man getting hit with Mjolnir.

The choreography and shot selection just seems a bit unimaginative.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

Yea it is a great shot.

It's just the way the fighting itself was shot I don't really like. You get a medium range shot of Iron Man firing his repulsors. Then a medium range shot of Thor getting hit by the repulsors. Then a medium range shot of Thor throwing Mjolnir. Then a medium range shot of Iron Man getting hit with Mjolnir.

The choreography and shot selection just seems a bit unimaginative.

I think they just went with a less is more aproach, I thought it was pretty effective.

 

[The Endless]

I really like the "dog fighting" between Quill and Ego in the final battle.

I want to see more of that in these films. Especially where Thor is concerned. He always seems to be fighting on the ground. He just doesn't seem as mobile as I'd like. Even if MCU Thor doesn't have full flight without Mjolnir, they should make him as mobile as Wonder Woman.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I like the Thor vs Iron Man fight, don't think it's great, but it's obviously better than terrible.
And thankfully; no shaky cam.

 

[MadVillainy]

Lmao no to either? Why not?

neither of them looked that good to me. Guardians did have a lot of good in it visually but also a lot of bad shots to me. Then Krypton in the DCEU just looks liked a video game...which is cool for a video game but not for a live action movie

Agree about Guardians but disagree about MOS. Unfortunately the DP for IW is the same one from TWS and CW and those movies looked dull.

Is there a reason the MCU is using such dull color schemes and whatnot? Obviously none of us are behind the scenes but does anyone have any guesses why?

 

[Snow Queen]

Lol, people calling Logan gorgeous while dissing the entire MCU is just hilarious. The only way I can reconcile that anyone would actually praise the cinematography of Logan, being as boring and unremarkable as it is, while simultaneously perpetuating the tired complaint about MCU movies looking bland, is because it's internet cool to praise edgy stuff like Logan and thumb your nose at the MCU because it's the "normal".

And I just can't justify how the MCU with all its colors can be called dull and gray when looking at the finales of MOS and WW and the entirety of BVS and SS.

Maybe someone can elaborate why movies like The Wolverine and Logan look good while the MCU movies do not, because I genuinely cannot see it. The Fox movies are about as basic as you can get...

Problem for me is that all these colours end up looking muted and washed out. It's not that they don't have them, they were clearly there when they shot, but then a lot of their films just make them look washed out. Iron Man in Civil War always stuck out to me in that regard, especially looking at the first Iron Man. Wonder Woman's third act definitely had issues, but that movie looked good. It also used the colour palette to tell it's story, with the obvious different look between Themyscira and WWI, but also the blue WWI backdrop around her costume, but not applying that look to the costume giving it a chance to really pop when it came out on the battlefield. SS and BVS? No argument here. BVS has some moments, but Suicide Squad is awful in it's own way. As for Logan, there is not one film in the MCU I'd say looked as good as that. I'd go as far as to say it's right with the Nolan trilogy as far as best looking superhero films go. Bland's the last word I'd use for this:

Spoiler

It's not because it's 'edgy', it's because I think the colour grading looks much better and because they know where to point the camera to create interesting and memorable imagery. My go to example would be the X at the end. It's also not because the MCU is 'normal', whatever that means, it's because I find their standard colour grading that they've adopted for most of their movies since the start of phase 2 looks bland and takes something away from what's on screen for me. Guardians 2, I appreciated that the colours didn't have that ugly muted look I have a problem with, and I really do hope that's an indication of that problem dropping by the way side in the future, rather than them making an exception.

But that's just me and all that.

 

[2kt09]

Is there a reason the MCU is using such dull color schemes and whatnot. Obviously none of us are behind the scenes but does anyone have any guesses why?

Cost. As was part of my hunch for why they'd do unmistakably CGI in broad day light at an evacuated airport.
The TWS and CW, though, in particular are going for that Bourne thing.

Unfortunately the DP for IW is the same one from TWS and CW and those movies looked dull.

Makes little sense why they'd keep using the guy who did District 9 and Elysium for that epic cosmic showdown.

 

[hafizbat]

Problem for me is that all these colours end up looking muted and washed out. It's not that they don't have them, they were clearly there when they shot, but then a lot of their films just make them look washed out. Iron Man in Civil War always stuck out to me in that regard, especially looking at the first Iron Man. Wonder Woman's third act definitely had issues, but that movie looked good. It also used the colour palette to tell it's story, with the obvious different look between Themyscira and WWI, but also the blue WWI backdrop around her costume, but not applying that look to the costume giving it a chance to really pop when it came out on the battlefield. SS and BVS? No argument here. BVS has some moments, but Suicide Squad is awful in it's own way. As for Logan, there is not one film in the MCU I'd say looked as good as that. I'd go as far as to say it's right with the Nolan trilogy as far as best looking superhero films go. Bland's the last word I'd use for this:

Spoiler

It's not because it's 'edgy', it's because I think the colour grading looks much better and because they know where to point the camera to create interesting and memorable imagery. My go to example would be the X at the end. It's also not because the MCU is 'normal', whatever that means, it's because I find their standard colour grading that they've adopted for most of their movies since the start of phase 2 looks bland and takes something away from what's on screen for me. Guardians 2, I appreciated that the colours didn't have that ugly muted look I have a problem with, and I really do hope that's an indication of that problem dropping by the way side in the future, rather than them making an exception.

But that's just me and all that.

Yeah those are fair points, and you're right those Wolverine shots look really good. It's been a while since I watched those movies but my impression was that they looked pretty standard. But yeah, those shots do look pretty great.

I'm definitely not saying the MCU has no issues with its visuals. It's just that I think the rest of the competition looks comparable with the exception of TDKT and maybe the Mangold Wolverine movies. I think the flak Marvel gets for its visuals is disproportionate to how big an issue it is when Fox and DC are just as hit-and-miss.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

Problem for me is that all these colours end up looking muted and washed out. It's not that they don't have them, they were clearly there when they shot, but then a lot of their films just make them look washed out. Iron Man in Civil War always stuck out to me in that regard, especially looking at the first Iron Man. Wonder Woman's third act definitely had issues, but that movie looked good. It also used the colour palette to tell it's story, with the obvious different look between Themyscira and WWI, but also the blue WWI backdrop around her costume, but not applying that look to the costume giving it a chance to really pop when it came out on the battlefield. SS and BVS? No argument here. BVS has some moments, but Suicide Squad is awful in it's own way. As for Logan, there is not one film in the MCU I'd say looked as good as that. I'd go as far as to say it's right with the Nolan trilogy as far as best looking superhero films go. Bland's the last word I'd use for this:

Spoiler

It's not because it's 'edgy', it's because I think the colour grading looks much better and because they know where to point the camera to create interesting and memorable imagery. My go to example would be the X at the end. It's also not because the MCU is 'normal', whatever that means, it's because I find their standard colour grading that they've adopted for most of their movies since the start of phase 2 looks bland and takes something away from what's on screen for me. Guardians 2, I appreciated that the colours didn't have that ugly muted look I have a problem with, and I really do hope that's an indication of that problem dropping by the way side in the future, rather than them making an exception.

But that's just me and all that.

Agreed. And those shots are all awesome. Visually Mangold is great. Among his many other directing talents.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Such a great shot.

The great shot, where no one actually looks like they are in the same shot. t: