State your unpopular film related opinion - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 32

Lord of the Rings (and the first PotC and RotS) was the exception that worked, Superman Returns and PotC and Matrix sequels really didn't. I do think it feels like there's a big difference between 2:20 and maybe even 2:30 and 2:40+.

 

Ok. I mean you can Google recent 90 min movies and find recent ones too. I was just pointing out a general statement that for any "long" movie you can find a "short" one. My point still stands.

Movies aren't getting longer on the whole. Anyone can feel that way, but it's not backed by any data from what I can tell

 

I wasn't referring to the quality of the movies. I was pointing out that there were always "longer" genre films being released and that it's not new as a user was saying

 

Thus... "Slowly creeping up on us."

I don't deny there were high profile blockbusters films a decade and a half back or more that were long.

I and others are seeing an increase is these longer blockbuster attempts today. And I think the competition and just reality with streaming as a factor feeds into that. For some it is bloat, the push by studios and directors to add gravitas to a genre work. For others it's allowing films to compete with long format serialized stories on TV/Cable/Streaming that have more time to build up characters, setting, relationships, and the like.

But it appears to a lot that it is a building trend. I can see how looking at the passion and money genre fans bring to their product that studios and film makers understand that the more immersive the movie is the more passion it invokes and part of providing that immersion can include being open to longer run times depending on the project and what they hope to accomplish.

For myself... I'm not finding a lot of satisfaction with the recent long run time films. I LOVE immersion and if I am enjoying the story it could be a 3 hr plus film. But too often recent films just come off cold, bloated and frankly boring with these 2hr 15min plus flicks.

Skyfall was long but you were caught up in the story.

No Time To Die just dragged, with unnecessary meandering with the story culminating in a climax that by that point had me just not caring. Same with Dune. Beautiful but dull, same as Bond.

Now you get to a NWH or AEG and the size of the cast and the story benefit from long run times, delivering entertaining and engaging epic block buster studio product.

And chasing THOSE films that are long but are big hits and grow the brands they promote are why we have this current crop of long movies.

 

Studios also look at the numbers when it comes to releasing long films. They aren't afraid to take chances when the top three highest grossing films of all time are either three hours long (Titanic, Endgame) or close enough to it (Avatar). Even if you look at the current top ten highest grossing films of all time (unadjusted), they all clock in north of two hours with the exception of The Lion King. Jurassic World just barely makes it at 2 hours, 4 minutes.

From this we know that audiences aren't afraid of long movies, but filmmakers should still be conscious of whether a long runtime is needed. Movies like Endgame made the most of it and benefitted from it but for every film whose long runtime is justified, there's always a few where it isn't necessary at all. The Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers sequels come to mind there.

 

But we weren't talking about the quality of the films as it pertains to runtime, right? Or what stories or films deserve their runtime.
I asked "are movies really getting longer" in response to someone saying "the run time on movies {especially CBM} these days, are just way too long..." which from what can be found, on the whole they aren't any longer than they have been in like 30 maybe years. Arguably even forever. For every movie that has an actual "long" runtime there have been many that have an actual "short" runtime. For every 3+ hour Gone With the Wind, there's a Wuthering Heights that's 1hr44m. The OP didn't say "movies are starting to feel to long..."

Now are movies starting to feel longer due to pacing? I'd agree with that but that's subjective and a different thing than what was initially brought up. (The user name dropped "The Batman" when talking about movies being too long. How can we discuss the pacing, whether The Batman deserved it's runtime, etc. when the movie isn't out yet? ).
I said before there are movies, even good ones, under 2 hours that felt way longer to me. Luce (good movie, meh ending) and Ex Machina (loved it) are two that spring to my mind.
EDIT: Taxi Driver is under 2 hours and feels a lot longer. Great movie, but still

But feeling movies are getting longer doesn't mean movies are actually getting longer. One's an subjective feeling up to viewer (pacing) and one's objective. Looking back in the thread the point that was brought and what was being discussed was the objective.

 

I think it's just a present topic right now because we're in the middle of a string of lengthy blockbuster releases from No Time to Die to Dune to Eternals to No Way Home and now with The Batman the streak continues. I said this in another thread too but I'd also be surprised if Doctor Strange 2 is shorter than two and a half hours since there seems to be a lot going on in it.

 

I'll take all the heat for this one, IDGAF...


The Trailers for The Batman look fine. The footage looks... Fine. But also... It also looks like it's a step away from Dark and Gritty "Po' Faced" parody. I hope it does well and is good. Really. Love the Apes films that Reeves has done. But from Pattison on down... it all seeems WAY more try hard than Snyder's take on Gotham and Batman to me just from the little we have seen.

 

I mean, it looks like 2007 fan fiction of what people thought the Nolan films were like as directed by 1990's David Fincher. But that doesn't mean it won't be better, or at least more coherent than the last Batman version, I suppose.

 

I'm looking forward to The Batman, it looks like a solid crime thriller in the hands of a guy that made two AMAZING movies with talking apes.
But.
I do miss having fun with the character. Batman, Batman Forever felt dark and moody but it also had fun, you know what I mean? I'm not saying go Schumacher all the way, but... maybe a little bit?

 

I agree. I love Matt Reeves' work. All his films are great to me (well except that one romcom he did but I never saw it). Love Robert Pattinson. But yeah I'm a tad bit disappointed we're getting another, from the looks of it, serious, dark, brooding non fantastical take on the character.

I'm sure it'll be great. But I'd love more solo films in the tone of BTAS, Arkhamverse, etc.

 

Here's my unpopular opinion of the day: I think the Disney+ shows are cheapening the brand of both Star Wars and Marvel Studios. Is not special anymore. It was better when you had less stuff to focus on so you can anticipate what was coming next. Now is like there's always content, there's always something to watch constantly. They don't let people build expectation. And I'm afraid is just gonna get worse from now on. It's annoying and I'm starting to distance myself from that, I just can't (or don't want to) keep up with everything. I'm burned out. Great job, Mouse.

 

I kind of miss the post-Phantom Menace days where it was "uncool" to like Star Wars and you couldn't just waltz into Target and pick up a pair of Darth Vader BBQ tongs. The toxic pocket of the fandom surrounding the sequel trilogy in particular made it worse. That being said, I think that the Disney+ Star Wars shows have rejuvenated the franchise much more than the sequel trilogy did.

As for Marvel, I've kind of treated the MCU as an ongoing big budget TV series of sorts with its constant rotation of characters and big crossovers for a while now. While I'm not as overly invested as I was before Endgame, I'm still onboard for whatever they throw at us since there's still a lot more room to explore compared to Star Wars, which doesn't have the luxury of having as much variety compared to the MCU. People tend to be very fickle about Star Wars if it strays too far from the familiar, as we clearly saw with The Last Jedi.

 

I'm not even talking about quality, there's a considerable quality to (most) of the shows. But it's the quantity that bothers me. It's the false idea that "oh people like this, let's give them more and more and more!" at some point people will just get sick of it, precisely because the anticipation and build up is just gone. Is like "ah yeah, there's another Star Wars show...".

 

I feel like this is a popular unpopuar opinion

But I agree. I love The Mando, but have no interest in any of the other SW shows/spin offs. Honestly the whole discourse surrounding the sequel trilogy has soured me on SW in general. Similar thing happened with Ghostbusters.
And I've checked out of the MCU after EG. Haven't seen a new movie or show since. I'm burned out too. I'm also burned out on the idea of the multiverse. It just seems like a way for Marvel and DC to get cameos and cheap fanservice.

I love the MCU. I don't think they have a bad movie. But yeah there's too much and it's too similar is the problem. Tonally it's the same. It's like having chicken everyday and only slightly changing the spices. It would've been better if the DCEU had their stuff together and was tonally different than the MCU to balance it out. But now a lot of DCEU films feel like MCU lite in tone so most SH movies are starting to feel homogenized to me.

 

See, I felt that way when we were getting one Star Wars movie per year between 2015-2019, which funny enough I haven't felt that way about Marvel because there's more variety in the content. The shows haven't bothered me in that sense. At least not yet.

 

I think if they were actually good, it wouldn't matter. We were getting three Marvel films per year up to Endgame, and it being too much wasn't a problem because we were invested. And it was because of Feige. The issues were more about tonal same-ness and not being challenging enough at times, but 9/10 movies were at least solid. I don't think streaming inherently can hurt something, it's just how you do it. WandaVision was good.

The problem is Disney wants "content" so they're milking the brand with unnecessary and bland spin offs. It's become more corporate directed. Something like an Agatha Harkness spin off would have never happened pre Endgame. They're spreading things too thin where Feige probably doesn't have as much quality control. They are more concerned with fan service and expanding the MCU for its own sake than telling a good story. There is also this superficial corporate progressivism to some of them that is very disingenuous, making their so called progressive messages very hollow. It's becoming like SW, very homogenized and more about brand reinforcement than doing anything good or interesting.

 

Oh my God, I completely forgot about that Agatha Harkness show

 

This is a great snapshot of my issues. I haven't seen NWH because it just seems like cheap fanservice. Same reason I'm not looking for Multiverse of Maddness (there's a rumor about a cmaeo that'll actually get on my nerves) I'm sure i'll enjoy it but it seemed like "Let's bring these characters together because it'll make dough."
And you can say that about the MCU in general. But for me it's especially grating with the final battle in EG (the final battle wasn't good because it was filmed or shot well. It was good because it had a lot of big characters), CW (the airport fight had no stakes but it was cool because it had a lot of characters), and these new multiverse adventures.

On the corporate progressiveness yeah I feel that. I like that there is headway and I want diversity in films but the way they and a lot of studios/people do it reminds me of all those college brochures I got in high school that had a lot of POCs on the covers. But then you look at the numbers and the school's population is like 2% POCs. It feels very performative.
It's been spoken about to death but the "She's not alone" all woman moment in EG was the biggest, most cynical way of showcasing your woman characters. Even worse was the marketing for Captain Marvel. But it worked so . I'm glad woman loved it. But to me it just felt very performative. Like most of the Black History Month posts from companies that barely have any POC's in power.
The MCU still has a problem of the males being allowed to be fun and goofy while most the women are either comedy punching bags or are just their to roll their eyes and say the guy is stupid. It's like a CBS sitcom. Really I feel Valkyrie, Okoye, and Shuri are the only woman heroes done right in the MCU. They're smart, they're bad ass, they're not just eye candy, they're capable, they're funny, and they're not just their to be a love interest

 

There's a certain amount of fan service in NWH, yes, but I'd say it gets the core Spider-Man themes all in one place. It uses all these "fanservice-y" elements but in a good way. For me, at least. As a big Spidey fan I was surprised at how much I liked it (if you read all my posts pre-release I was really worried about it).
I'm still not over Marvel Studios as a whole, but I do wish we'd get more standalone films than a series of chapters in a never-ending ongoing storyline.

 

Are you referring to

Spoiler

John Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic?

In that sense I agree. If this is true, that means Marvel is making creative decisions based on false rumors on the internet. Since when do stories gratify fans whims? Movies are becoming fan films because these companies care more about not offending people and in return you get safe, bland storytelling and less visionary. They make their decisions not because they want to change, but because they've crunched the numbers and looked at their research and if they don't please this sub section of people, they might lose revenue and it will create a PR nightmare at best.

Corporations are inherently sociopathic in nature, therefore, they don't care about real life politics, they want to sell you a product. I'm very happy for the progress with diversity and representation in principle as it's long overdue, but when it comes to them being in service to coat these large corporations who don't give two ****s about progressivism with stories with core marginal and symbolic changes at best, it's obnoxious and cheap. Or even if it's a bottom of the barrel Marvel movie like Captain Marvel which suffers from not challenging its character and is more concerned with being a role model (this is another problem Marvel has with some of its female characters, and Disney in general). Yet because of our political polarization and social media being out of control, you're called a bigot (see what happened to Lindsay Ellis). When people are ascribing personalties to corporations and defending their products in order to tear others down, we as a society are in trouble. That's part of what post capitalism is.

Not to mention, Disney does business with China. They can put Awkwafina and Lin Manuel Miranda in their corporate presentations all they want, but that's the smoking gun for me.

 

Nah I'm referring to the

Spoiler

Patrick Stewart returning as Xavier and will get killed off by Wanda rumor.
I feel like it cheapens a great final send off in Logan. There's also rumors of Jackman appearing as Wolverine

i hadn't heard the one you're talking about. But wouldn't surprise me for the reasons you stated

 

Yeah, I hate that too. Marvel is very bad at undermining consequences like their drama.

 

Yep another reason I'm kinda off it. I miss when they could do something like the first Iron Man which was hilarious but still had weight behind it. Now every time something major happens I expect them to undo it unless it has to do with actor contracts

 

Yeah, even with the dramatic scenes like Tony saying why he's doing what he's doing has weight that these new ones don't have. If there was that, there would be some obnoxious joke to break it up. Marvel is like McDonalds at this point. They have a formula and they stick to it.