Mark Millar now snubbing Marvel Disney...?

[soundofyousick]

FC gets alot too, as it should. But if the previous X films didnt come out do you think people would be as accepting to the roster, the Bond tone and the character focus on Magneto and Prof X? They would have been disappointed. They both rely on previous films.

It is an entirely different situation, due to lack of solo films.

In the X-Men films, characters get to take their turn in the spotlight, so in X1 the focus was on Wolverine, Rogue and Magneto...
X2, Wolverine, Jean Grey(to an extent), Rogue and Ice-Man's relationship, and Pyro(to an extent)...
X3, Wolverine, Storm, Xavier and Jean Grey's working relationship...
XMFC...Magneto and Xavier's working relationship(which had only been hinted at before), and Mystique's origins(which had been hinted at)...

so each movie had characters being explained from the ground up, Avengers didn't have that.

 

[def28]

Magneto and Prof X were always built up from X1. The intro to X1 and FC is identical.

 

[soundofyousick]

Magneto and Prof X were always built up from X1. The intro to X1 and FC is identical.

Yes, many origins are hinted at, and then they are expanded upon in further films when the characters get to take their turn in the spotlight. We got 3 movies where the team-members were in the spotlight, only by the 5th did we get one focusing on the team leaders, so of course, people would have been upset if that had been the first x-men movie, as generally the books are about the team members first and foremost.

 

[def28]

Yes, many origins are hinted at, and then they are expanded upon in further films when the characters get to take their turn in the spotlight. We got 3 movies where the team-members were in the spotlight, only by the 5th did we get one focusing on the team leaders, so of course, people would have been upset if that had been the first x-men movie, as generally the books are about the team members first and foremost.

Yeah, and I think these films will appeal to a bigger audience and box office if they focus on that aspect more. Giving it a full team focus is where its at.

 

[soundofyousick]

Yeah, and I think these films will appeal to a bigger audience and box office if they focus on that aspect more. Giving it a full team focus is where its at.

That is easier to do in monthly comic books or a tv series though, the Avengers had the luxury of giving each major team member roughly the same amount of screen time, because they already had the solo movies give full focus to each. With X-Men they need to take turns in each movie of having the focus on 3 or 4 members at a time, or else there would be no real character development.

 

[def28]

I kinda agree but X Men should have no problem building 4-5 team characters in a 2hour 10 min movie. Most these characters dont need their own film. Actually Ill say besides Wolverine and Deadpool I dont see any other solos happening. Nor should they right now. Multiple team films on the other hand would be awesome. The problem is they havnt focused on the team aspect enough or have many characters participating in battle or doing anything useful in the 5 films they have been given. X Men should be about the team not just one or two characters on a team.

 

[soundofyousick]

I kinda agree but X Men should have no problem building 4-5 team characters in a 2hour 10 min movie. Most these characters dont need their own film. Actually Ill say besides Wolverine and Deadpool I dont see any other solos happening. Nor should they right now. Multiple team films on the other hand would be awesome. The problem is they havnt focused on the team aspect enough or have many characters participating in battle or doing anything useful in the 5 films they have been given. X Men should be about the team not just one or two characters on a team.

Well, we have seen them fight in team formation in X1, X3 and XMFC, I think the lack of team formation fighting could be down to budget, most of X3's budget went into completing the film's sfx in time, X1 had it's budget cut during filming, X2 did not get the required budget to have the finale Singer wanted(with human sized sentinals).
But XMFC did pretty well with it's team finale, esp given it's somewhat rushed production time.
Until Avengers came along, I thought XMFC had the most satisfying thrid act action finale of any superhero film.

 

[Lorus]

eh, most of the characters in XMFC were introduced in that film, and you say that having seen the solo films before Avengers, true?
*You* could have enjoyed avengers to the full because you know the characters from the comics anyway, right?
Think of someone who has no clue about the characters, they would have no idea what Cap/Iron-Man/Thor was all about, absolutely no ref to how they got started, which is important(edit) if you want the full on thrill of sharing their adventures.
Without the previous films, the film is character-less, just a big punch up movie.
edit: and we got Magneto, Xavier and Mystique's full on origins, where before they had only been hinted at, there was no meat like that in Avengers, it needed the solo movies to be more than a special effects laden eye candy punch up movie.

This line of thinking has always baffled me. A film's quality is judged entirely on its own merits, not the merits of other films it shares connections with. This is because a narrative needs to function and operate correctly within itself otherwise it fails on the most fundamental of levels, which is telling a story. Even films that are direct sequels to or within the same franchise as each other need to operate independently, such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight trilogy, even the X-Men films.

If the Avengers was character-less and just a special effects laden punch up then it would be a bad film period. Even if all the previous films had been universally adored. While it's true that you can get more from a film in a series if you're familiar with the other films, they can't influence the specific mechanisms and workings of any individual film's narrative. This cuts both ways in a sense as it explains why people can hate any of the previous Marvel films but enjoy the Avengers, such as Ebert loathing Thor but not the Avengers.

I'd say one of the Avengers' greatest strength, if not the greatest, is Whedon's wonderfully elegant and tightly written script. It uses the characters of other films and utilises them in a way that not only provides a greater experience for those familiar with them but also explains them to newcomers and propels its own internal narrative. On the most basic level, Whedon's film needs characters to work. Therefore he needs to introduce and characterise them, it doesn't matter how many previous appearances Iron Man or Thor have made, Whedon has to build them from scratch into his specific narrative. It seems ridiculous to me that people can say that the solo films 'did the work' of introducing/developing characters so the Avengers 'didn't have to' as that suggests that the Avengers could possibly have worked while completely lacking such fundamental building blocks of stories.

I very much enjoy First Class and I'd also say that the Avengers has just as much as 'meat' in terms of of its characters and storytelling. Maybe even more given the biggest weakness of First Class is the bloated nature of its script compared to the elegance of the Avengers.

 

[fangz]

@Lorus - right on. team dynamics is really easily conveyed with a tight script. comic book movies need not, and i believe, should not be hard to pull off on this level. actually, for any kind of movie, focusing on building a character from cheap, contrived motivations, is going to make for a worse movie.
explaining and justifying things doesn't make the audience relate to them more. it's better to have a full formed Wolverine appear with no explanation that truly acts like the character than to have a fake ass performance of who Wolverine is but have a novel's worth of cheap boring exposition that keeps telling us why he is what we is. and a lot of the actual source comics make that same mistake.
and, responding to way earlier posts in this thread, i think that a comic book movie is one that is based on a comic book. doesn't matter if u like the movie or the source material or not, but it seems weird to have to argue about what a term like 'comic book movie' actually is. something does not only become a true 'comic book movie' if it's well done. there can be bad 'comic book movies' and also there can be good ones. but to demand that something has to be true to the source material is infinitely subjective and is not gonna hold any substance when used as a broad criteria

if a movie sucks, why can't we just talk about why we think it does suck instead of using totally imaginary rulers for how good it is? like saying that it got a certain box office or that it was more true to the source material than some other version of it?

cuz that's never gonna be the real reason that a movie sucks or is good or whatever. you're going to be able to make a great Spider-Man movie using either organic web shooters or wrist web shooting devices, just like you'll be able to make a lousy one with either option. that's really not what a movie is about.

 

[Evil Twin]

Still light hearted. Sex and nudity means nothing to a Brit like Moore.

Perhaps, but I think Hyde's last confrontation with The Invisible Man removes a huge chunk of light heartedness. And Moore leans on the rape crutch a lot in LoEG. Overall I think it's a terrific series, but it's not exactly all ages friendly.

 

[soundofyousick]

This line of thinking has always baffled me. A film's quality is judged entirely on its own merits, not the merits of other films it shares connections with. This is because a narrative needs to function and operate correctly within itself otherwise it fails on the most fundamental of levels, which is telling a story. Even films that are direct sequels to or within the same franchise as each other need to operate independently, such as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight trilogy, even the X-Men films.

If the Avengers was character-less and just a special effects laden punch up then it would be a bad film period. Even if all the previous films had been universally adored. While it's true that you can get more from a film in a series if you're familiar with the other films, they can't influence the specific mechanisms and workings of any individual film's narrative. This cuts both ways in a sense as it explains why people can hate any of the previous Marvel films but enjoy the Avengers, such as Ebert loathing Thor but not the Avengers.

I'd say one of the Avengers' greatest strength, if not the greatest, is Whedon's wonderfully elegant and tightly written script. It uses the characters of other films and utilises them in a way that not only provides a greater experience for those familiar with them but also explains them to newcomers and propels its own internal narrative. On the most basic level, Whedon's film needs characters to work. Therefore he needs to introduce and characterise them, it doesn't matter how many previous appearances Iron Man or Thor have made, Whedon has to build them from scratch into his specific narrative. It seems ridiculous to me that people can say that the solo films 'did the work' of introducing/developing characters so the Avengers 'didn't have to' as that suggests that the Avengers could possibly have worked while completely lacking such fundamental building blocks of stories.

I very much enjoy First Class and I'd also say that the Avengers has just as much as 'meat' in terms of of its characters and storytelling. Maybe even more given the biggest weakness of First Class is the bloated nature of its script compared to the elegance of the Avengers.

Dude, you are taking me too literally, of course there is some character work in the film, but we do not get to see what makes these characters 'tick' in those particular ways, before we get to the interactions, we need the solo movies for that.

I said this already...

- We don't know what made Cap so special(in actual fact , we don't know why he was so earnest and clean cut in the first movie either, but for the purposes of what we are givem , I mean, we don't know of his weak, humble beginnings, it is an added thrill to know this when he goes up against a god)

- the dicotomy of Iron-Man's irreverence and heroics would be puzzling, and less interesting.

- Thor's speeches to Loki would carry less weight if we had not seen him grapple with his own problems when it came to ruling.

edit: and I'm sorry, but no, different rules apply when dealing with chapters in a series of films, you can't critisice chapter two if it brings no sense of what makes these characters 'tick'(as long as there is some further characterisation), but you can critisice chapter one if it does not do this job.

 

[soundofyousick]

@Lorus - right on. team dynamics is really easily conveyed with a tight script. comic book movies need not, and i believe, should not be hard to pull off on this level. actually, for any kind of movie, focusing on building a character from cheap, contrived motivations, is going to make for a worse movie.
explaining and justifying things doesn't make the audience relate to them more. it's better to have a full formed Wolverine appear with no explanation that truly acts like the character than to have a fake ass performance of who Wolverine is but have a novel's worth of cheap boring exposition that keeps telling us why he is what we is. and a lot of the actual source comics make that same mistake.

eh, even from the very first X-Men comics, when Dave Cockrum was drawing the books, we got enough hints at Wolverine's past to make him intriguing. The second ever comic I read with him in ther late 70s was the one with Kierrok, when Wolverine talks about all the years of hypnotism and psycho-therapy he went through, and being glad he still had his killer instinct nonetheless to make him more effective against such unbeatable foes. *That* was what made him interesting to me, wondering about what kind of man he used to be.

The story is always enhanced by these background details, maybe you get your kicks in a different way than me when it comes to these characters, but I have always carried their beginnings and personalities with me into their adventures, for me, that enhances the experinece, hell, that is the experience, otherwise I could just watch any bozo with superpowers having a punch up and get my kicks.

 

[Dark Raven]

I rewatched the Avengers again over Christmas with small children around. I think the problem with the movie is not that it's a popcorn flick but that it's not enough of one. When you watch with young children, you realise just how talky it is and there are actually long periods where there isn't any action. It sometimes seems to build towards action and is about to erupt but then it drags out even longer. Even the early part of the movie before the Hulk/Thor fight is a little light on the action. The scenes with Cap/Iron Man vs Loki and Iron Man vs Thor are a bit short and over quickly.

Now compare that with some of Steven Spielberg's film making. It's not pure spectacle and the moments of downtime are still good. However, once it gets to the action, it's exciting and prolonged enough that there's moment after moment of edge-of-the-seat thrills. He even showed that in the Tintin movie recently.

With Avengers, only really the end battle truly qualifies as spectacle and gets into the realm of a "popcorn" movie. Even the SHIELD helicarrier sequence is slightly lacking. As for nearly all other comicbook movies (including the Fox ones such as Fantastic Four), those action sequences are really leaving something to be desired. I'd say some of the sequences in Spider-Man 2 (eg the train fight) was on the money, but even that movie dragged in places and seemed a little too sombre and introspective at times.

So yeah, I have yet to watch a truly popcorn comic book movie. I'm still waiting for one.

 

[YoungPrime]

I rewatched the Avengers again over Christmas with small children around. I think the problem with the movie is not that it's a popcorn flick but that it's not enough of one. When you watch with young children, you realise just how talky it is and there are actually long periods where there isn't any action. It sometimes seems to build towards action and is about to erupt but then it drags out even longer. Even the early part of the movie before the Hulk/Thor fight is a little light on the action. The scenes with Cap/Iron Man vs Loki and Iron Man vs Thor are a bit short and over quickly.

Now compare that with some of Steven Spielberg's film making. It's not pure spectacle and the moments of downtime are still good. However, once it gets to the action, it's exciting and prolonged enough that there's moment after moment of edge-of-the-seat thrills. He even showed that in the Tintin movie recently.

With Avengers, only really the end battle truly qualifies as spectacle and gets into the realm of a "popcorn" movie. Even the SHIELD helicarrier sequence is slightly lacking. As for nearly all other comicbook movies (including the Fox ones such as Fantastic Four), those action sequences are really leaving something to be desired. I'd say some of the sequences in Spider-Man 2 (eg the train fight) was on the money, but even that movie dragged in places and seemed a little too sombre and introspective at times.

So yeah, I have yet to watch a truly popcorn comic book movie. I'm still waiting for one.

I'm sure director/producers like Micheal Bay would love to here you say this. But many do not.

Let's be real here. Children have the attention span of fruit flies when all together in one room. So it's not really fair to hold an action movies ranking to a bunch of 8 year old's. This is how Hollywood in general interprets your comments. It's the reason why Resident Evil is "5" films in with no intent on ever stopping.

It's because of this that Bay welcomes scripts that circle around sex and toilet humor instead of a compelling story to complement his "Splosions".

You can argue the the villains in this flick were on the weak side but I the dialog in this film sets it apart from dumb popcorn movies like Bay's.

And the fact that Avengers out sold Bays latest film and had stronger reviews only reassures the future of "quality" action films.

 

[Dark Raven]

I'm sure director/producers like Micheal Bay would love to here you say this. But many do not.

Let's be real here. Children have the attention span of fruit flies when all together in one room. So it's not really fair to hold an action movies ranking to a bunch of 8 year old's. This is how Hollywood in general interprets your comments. It's the reason why Resident Evil is "5" films in with no intent on ever stopping.

It's because of this that Bay welcomes scripts that circle around sex and toilet humor instead of a compelling story to complement his "Splosions".

You can argue the the villains in this flick were on the weak side but I the dialog in this film sets it apart from dumb popcorn movies like Bay's.

And the fact that Avengers out sold Bays latest film and had stronger reviews only reassures the future of "quality" action films.

I don't know why you feel the need to bring Michael Bay into this. I didn't mention him once and he wasn't even in the back of my mind. I didn't say either that the dialogue in Avengers should be removed. I don't think comic book movies need sex and toilet humour or Michael Bay-type wall-to-wall action with dumbed-down dialogue. I mentioned Spielberg because he has more of the right balance of telling a good story but once the action gets going, they are pure thrills and excitement. Much of the comic book action scenes tend to stop and start in spurts and aren't always on the level of drama or suspense of even non-comic book action thriller movies.

 

[Dr Tactics]

I don't know why you feel the need to bring Michael Bay into this. I didn't mention him once and he wasn't even in the back of my mind. I didn't say either that the dialogue in Avengers should be removed. I don't think comic book movies need sex and toilet humour or Michael Bay-type wall-to-wall action with dumbed-down dialogue. I mentioned Spielberg because he has more of the right balance of telling a good story but once the action gets going, they are pure thrills and excitement. Much of the comic book action scenes tend to stop and start in spurts and aren't always on the level of drama or suspense of even non-comic book action thriller movies.

He mentioned Bay because he is the opposite of Spielberg where Bay's films are the true meaning of a so called popcorn flick. YPrime is just agreeing with you from another point of view that the Avengers actually had a actual storyline and wasn't just fights and effects and was more Spielberg like than Bay like as a film.

Popcorn flick term is so dumb though. I ate my popcorn while watching Django Unchained. Does that make that a popcorn flick too??

I'm done with Millar and anything he says..

 

[YoungPrime]

I don't know why you feel the need to bring Michael Bay into this. I didn't mention him once and he wasn't even in the back of my mind. I didn't say either that the dialogue in Avengers should be removed. I don't think comic book movies need sex and toilet humour or Michael Bay-type wall-to-wall action with dumbed-down dialogue. I mentioned Spielberg because he has more of the right balance of telling a good story but once the action gets going, they are pure thrills and excitement. Much of the comic book action scenes tend to stop and start in spurts and aren't always on the level of drama or suspense of even non-comic book action thriller movies.

Thank you Doctor...But I've got this one.

I swear the animosity in here is so thick that people close their minds to even the simplest explanations.

Micheal Bay was initially mention as an example of what a "popcorn flick" is in my very first post thus creating this thread. So if you are questioning what his relevance is them perhaps they should read it again.

And even if you're against Bay the fact that you mentioned children watching a live action movie still doesn't justify much considering that even Saturday morning cartoons on major networks are extinct.

So with the exception of maybe a handful of shows. The fact is that children these days are not going to sit still in front of a television unless there's a joystick in their hands.

BTW I haven't seen Warhorse or Lincoln yet but as far as action movies go even Spielberg has come across problems recently.

India Jone: Crystal Skull, War of the Worlds and Minority report were all disappointments from a GA and Hollywood prospective.

True or not?

 

[Lorus]

Dude, you are taking me too literally, of course there is some character work in the film, but we do not get to see what makes these characters 'tick' in those particular ways, before we get to the interactions, we need the solo movies for that.

I said this already...

- We don't know what made Cap so special(in actual fact , we don't know why he was so earnest and clean cut in the first movie either, but for the purposes of what we are givem , I mean, we don't know of his weak, humble beginnings, it is an added thrill to know this when he goes up against a god)

- the dicotomy of Iron-Man's irreverence and heroics would be puzzling, and less interesting.

- Thor's speeches to Loki would carry less weight if we had not seen him grapple with his own problems when it came to ruling.

edit: and I'm sorry, but no, different rules apply when dealing with chapters in a series of films, you can't critisice chapter two if it brings no sense of what makes these characters 'tick'(as long as there is some further characterisation), but you can critisice chapter one if it does not do this job.

Characterisation and interaction does tell you what makes a character tick, because that's what defines how such things present themselves. If anything, character interaction is much better at delving in to a character as it allows them to test their convictions, change and evolve. You may not get specific character origins but they aren't necessary. To address your points though:

Cap's origin isn't told to the audience, yes, but this doesn't matter for two reasons. Firstly, it's not relevant to the specific theme of Cap's arc which relates more to his anachronism. This means the character is tested in different ways and, especially due to the fish out of water aspect, goes further than the solo film in that it helps redefine the character and underline the central tenets of him. Secondly, what you describe as an extra thrill is just that, extra. It supplements what's already there without being necessary in and of itself. More importantly though, the central metaphor of Cap's strength of will and earnestness becoming a physical strength is represented through his actions in that scene and the following one. The film ensures you understand that Steve is just a man so the fact that he willingly goes up against a god not once but twice, and feels like it's his duty to do so, tells the audience this about his character. It's informing through showing, not telling.

As for the other two points, they both fall under much the same response, the solo films supplement scenes in the Avengers but remain unnecessary in the long run. The Avengers isn't at all reliant on the solo films because it provides enough content to give the scenes their own dramatic merit in isolation of the other films. In the case of Thor's speech to Loki, it becomes meaningful in a different way in light of the Thor film, but still remains meaningful and has dramatic merit in the context of what's happening in the scene. You're point would only be valid if the entire purpose of the scene was based around the idea that Thor had wrestled with similar issues.

As for Iron Man, I'm not sure I understand how you perceive there to be a problem. His actions wouldn't be puzzling to the uninitiated, they're perfectly consistent with what the film establishes about him. There is no grounds for confusion. Furthermore, surely the character would become more interesting if you hadn't seen the Iron Man films as it poses the question of why that is so and invites the audience to examine the character through that lens.