Stop With Love Interest

Is there any particular examples your not a fan of?

 

Almost all of them have a love interest and it's sometimes hard to justify their existence.

 

The ones in Iron Man and The Amazing Spider-man were actually well done, the love interests in Nolan's Batman trilogy were there to serve the plot, so they do have a point to be there, even if they're not well explored. It's like in most blockbusters nowadays, you have a love interest that can be good or forgetable

 

I see where the OP's coming from. What he's saying is that sometimes love interests feel shoehorned in, and are often placed just to please the audience. Off the top of my head, Kick-Ass is pretty guilty of this. At the end, he was never really meant to get the girl, but in the movie they shoehorned it anyway.

Although these days, the romance side-stories in Comic Book Movies isn't forced at all. Like in Man of Steel, Lois and Clark's romance is at a minimal, and is implied to grow over time.

 

In Kick-Ass it's shown that he's interested in the girl from the begining, in fact The Man of Steel is actually more guilty of that, Clark and Lois suddenly kissing didn't make much sence.

 

Not going to happen. Women watch superhero movies as well as men and if there were no love interest I think the number of female viewers would drop. I watched pretty much every single ASM review by females and almost all of them brought up the romance and chemistry of the leads and how they enjoyed the hero having a partner. Take that away and you have to wonder how engaged they would be.

 

Man of Steel was a kiss. Thor was infatuation/lust. Neither were remotely "love stories", just the beginnings of such.

Also, it's REAL easy for a love story to move too fast when it's being told in two hours.

 

Thor was really funny. You get why she would fall for him (which girl wouldn't) but what did he see in her? He would break her like a twig if they ever got it on.

 

there was no romance they had 1 kiss in the heat of the moment thats it

 

On her side, it seemed more like lust and you're right, he's a literal god, so what wouldn't she see in him. On his side, it seemed to start out as fascination and then he gained respect for her because she was instrumental in his learning not to be an arrogant fool all the time. Thor's relationship with Jane seemed to give him some grounding, and he seemed to like that.

I've always said that Thor's romantic subplot is one of the best because it's fairly accurate to how things really happen. They didn't just fall madly in love right away, but the building blocks for it were laid down. Something similar happens in Man of Steel.

 

In all fairness, while the execution varies in the movies, there are quite a few superheroes with love interests. It's an inevitable thing to adapt.

 

A love interest doesn't have to mean literal love. It's the inclusion of another character for the primary character to fall for. Almost always someone of the opposite sex who the main character is attracted to and feels a need to protect/long for. There's this mentality in Hollywood (and everywhere else for that matter) that almost every hero needs someone to protect outside of the masses, the everyday, random people who need help.

Superman can't just feel the need to protect the world, he has to have someone in particular to protect. Spider-Man can't just be the protector of New York, he has to save his girlfriend too.

In some stories like Superman/Clark Kent and Lois or Spider-Man/Peter Parker and Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy it's pretty much ingrained in the history of the character permanantly. There's a long, steady history of these two characters together that has come to define who they are. That's fine. Without their love interest it would feel incomplete. With the Fantastic Four and Reed/Sue, they're already together so it doesn't count.

Batman/Bruce Wayne and whoever the love interest of the movie is (there have been seven or eight movies and every time it's a new woman excluding Catwoman in two seperate franchises and Rachel who barely counts in TDK) gets shoe-horned in too often to give the character extra incentive/plot device to do something.

Batman doesn't need a love interest to do his heroics. Neither would someone like Frank Castle as the Punisher or even Tony Stark although his was well done and justifiable.

In Thor, Jane is meant to serve as his human connection but it wasn't necessary to be a love interest, it's just their chosen route to go. It's quick, easy and cliche'd as hell. Bruce Banner/Hulk and Betsy wasn't necessary but again, it's his link to his humanity.

Daredevil with Elektra was just pointless.

In fact, other than Blade, who still sort had one in Blade II (I'm split on whether Karen from the first one is an actual interest) is the only one I can think of offhand besides The Punisher (which inverts it to love interest/family lost) to be a super hero who doesn't need a love interest to function as a hero.

This is a tried and true story telling method but it's also tired and I would like to see something that does it differently for a change.

 

Trouble is all films have to tell the story in a 2-3 hour window. Real relationships are so complicated (well the women I know) that you cant possibly explain it all unless the film was like two days long.

PS: Men can be complicated too I am aware of this ladiest:

 

Watching Supes take Louis to the cinema and on long romantic walks would have slowed the pace of the movie somewhatt:

 

I like that the made Gwen and Lois proactive and both had a major hand in taking down the bad guy but unlike Gwen who distracts the Lizard (with the trophy) Lois needs saving again and again.

 

Catwoman (B Returns), Pepper Potts, Gwen (TASM) are the only love interests that I remember that have been good. Thor's one was specially idiotic.

 

Didn't like Lois in MoS?

I loved Gwen in ASM. She was smart, funny, a partner and an equal and it brings tears to your eyes that they are going to throw her off a bridge. Please don't spoil if this will happen or not as I haven't been to the Spidey boards in months

 

Oh well, I liked Lois in MOS, certainly. But she was barely a love interest. Untill we got that last minute forced kiss.

 

The last kiss was forced but when you look like Cavill you can't blame Lois for locking lips. Heck, I'd probably kiss him if he saved me like that.

 

Yeah it's pretty tiresome, but then they need to give female audiences something.

X-Men First Class got away with not having one. Well, they sort of had the romance between Magneto and Professor X, so there's that.

 

Its not done just for female audiences I dont think. The hero has to have something worth fighting and an element of risk of losing something close that means a great deal to him.

Granted tho it does get over used in films.

 

No, but often it is. The fact that it is basically mandatory, should tell us something.

Romance can easily make a 100 million dollar difference. Women are a key demographic.

Without a designated love interest, a some of these movies wouldn't even have female characters in them.