Superhero Cinematic Civil War - - - - - - - - - - - Part 51

[Drizzle]

Well Odin just dies and I don't remember them doing anything interesting with it.

Well, his death is basically the catalyst of the whole movie as it brings Hela into the story. Besides that, it doesn't hold the same weight as, say, most of the deaths in Infinity War. But there's something sad about the once all-powerful ruler of Asgard spending his final years in a nursing home not knowing who he is until he finally shakes Loki's spell and chooses to live out his remaining days on a cliff in Norway. The only bright spot to that was that he made peace with his sons before dying.

 

[Flint Marko]

I'll just do you a favor and ignore the second part of your post.

Then I’ll repeat myself: saying that Taika’s comedic take required that he put “less effort” into his work is absolute unfiltered horse manure. I’d argue that it requires more from a director because comedies are absolutely not easy to pull off, particularly when you’re dealing with a variety of actors who are largely improvising.

Anyway, Taika could have put more effort into the writing of the characters but he instead chose to write them as caricatures. Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy and Gunn's Guardians movies are very comedic yet they still put a lot of effort into making the characters compelling and developed. There's no excuses for Waititi, but I mean, don't let me stop you from enjoying it.

You know that Taika didn’t write the movie, right?

Great effort was clearly put into the movie whether you want to recognize it or not. Now if you said “I wish more effort was put specifically into the dramatic scenes” that’d be another conversation.

 

[Johnny-Oh]

Then I’ll repeat myself: saying that Taika’s comedic take required that he put “less effort” into his work is absolute unfiltered horse manure. I’d argue that it requires more from a director because comedies are absolutely not easy to pull off, particularly when you’re dealing with a variety of actors who are largely improvising.

Well it clearly takes less effort to focus mostly on the comedy than having a good balance of effective comedy and compelling drama. The movie has a script so there shouldn't be a reason for the actors to improvise too much.

You know that Taika didn’t write the movie, right?

Great effort was clearly put into the movie whether you want to recognize it or not. Now if you said “I wish more effort was put specifically into the dramatic scenes” that’d be another conversation.

I'll give some of the blame to the writers then.

Also, I never said there wasn't effort put into the movie. I said "less effort" as in "not enough". More focus on your comprehension skills instead of your snarky comments please.

 

[C. Lee]

Also, I never said there wasn't effort put into the movie. I said "less effort" as in "not enough". More focus on your comprehension skills instead of your snarky comments please.

Ahhh...the old "I'll make a snarky comment while griping about someone else making a snarky comment" trick.

 

[Flint Marko]

Well it clearly takes less effort to focus mostly on the comedy than having a good balance of effective comedy and compelling drama. The movie has a script so there shouldn't be a reason for the actors to improvise too much.



I'll give some of the blame to the writers then.

If someone looks at an artist’s creation, doesn’t click with it, and says they didn’t put enough effort in their work, that’s not a critique. It’s an insult. I understand you probably didn’t mean it that way, but that’s what it is. Again, it’d be different if you said “more effort put into X specifically”. But that’s not what you said.

He was a comedic director hired to make a comedic movie. Whether or not the dramatic moments left you wanting more is an entirely different conversation.

Also, I never said there wasn't effort put into the movie. I said "less effort" as in "not enough". More focus on your comprehension skills instead of your snarky comments please.

I never said that you thought there wasn’t any effort put into the movie.

 

[fan4stic]

Guys, the emotional aspects of the movie weren't developed very well. For goodness sakes after Odin dies and Thor and Loki have a conversation about it the movie makes a masterion joke while talking about how Thor losing his hammer was comparable to the loss of a loved one.

 

[RomanticPenguin]

what are thooooooooooooooose

 

[honestbharani]

Guys, the emotional aspects of the movie weren't developed very well. For goodness sakes after Odin dies and Thor and Loki have a conversation about it the movie makes a masterion joke while talking about how Thor losing his hammer was comparable to the loss of a loved one.

Are you not jumping between 3 different scenes to make this totally tedious and non-factual point?


If I recall correctly, there was a moment right affter Odin passes away when Thor turns to Loki with blazing eyes and it starts to thunder indicating his mood.


I dont think the issue in Ragnarok was the lack of emotional impact. As I said, the best emotional moments of this movie work FOR their brevity. Its just so much harder to pull off than 5 mins of conversation over a loss.

 

[Flemm]

The complaint about comedy being used to fill empty spaces in a weak script and story feels appropriate for Thor 2, and maybe the first Thor movie to a lesser extent, but not Ragnarok.

The movie is genuinely hilarious, for one thing. So even on a surface level, it's often brilliant comedy, rather than filler. But there's a lot more to the movie than that.

Anyway, that being said, the more dramatic elements didn't make a big impact for me, personally. They felt a little flat compared to the rest of the movie, basically just the minimum to close out the story with Odin. Not necessarily bad, but not a highlight. However, I don't see that as a major criticism. Some movies are mostly dramatic, with some comic relief. Ragnarok is brimming with comedy, so there is a little dramatic relief.

The comedy itself can have substance, that is the broader point. It surprises me a little to hear people talk about comedy as if it were inherently vacuous, or less important than dramatic stories. At times in the past, of course that belief would have been common, but I wouldn't have expected that attitude to be very prevalent in our own time.

 

[OutOfBoose]

"Des and Troy. When they're put together they destroy."

Yeah, no thanks.

 

[chamber-music]

I don't mind the comedy in Marvel films most the time but I do feel sometimes it seems like they are afraid to go more than five minutes without cracking a joke. Occasionally the jokes will feel a little forced.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Guys, the emotional aspects of the movie weren't developed very well. For goodness sakes after Odin dies and Thor and Loki have a conversation about it the movie makes a masterion joke while talking about how Thor losing his hammer was comparable to the loss of a loved one.

One of the reasons I don't do MCU, they don't do emotional depth particularly well. It's as if, they feel the need to 'pull out' of any heft or response or feel the moment the story or characters require an emotional or sad situation and replace or substitute with 'ah well, quick, fire the jokes out'.

Loss, anger, pain, sadness doesn't work like that.

 

[Flint Marko]

Guys, the emotional aspects of the movie weren't developed very well. For goodness sakes after Odin dies and Thor and Loki have a conversation about it the movie makes a masterion joke while talking about how Thor losing his hammer was comparable to the loss of a loved one.

There’s like half an hour of screen time between Odin’s death and that joke.

 

[Zarex]

One of the reasons I don't do MCU, they don't do emotional depth particularly well. It's as if, they feel the need to 'pull out' of any heft or response or feel the moment the story or characters require an emotional or sad situation and replace or substitute with 'ah well, quick, fire the jokes out'.

Loss, anger, pain, sadness doesn't work like that.

That's not my experience whatsoever. I joked with my mother and sister during the limo ride to my dad's burial and spent the rest of the afternoon hearing funny stories from family, friends and his co-workers. Humor and tragedy are intertwined in life, and to separate them out because certain folks are under the mistaken impression that that's not "grown up" is ridiculous.

Laugh through the tears, smile through the pain. That's life.

 

[DA_Champion]

Ragnarok is a movie that I was able to enjoy on not just one but even on two viewings, and thus it qualifies as an exceptionally good CBM.

It's not just that the jokes are funny, though they are. The visuals and the music are improved from what we usually get from Marvel ... I can watch the end credits as a music video, and in fact I have on a couple occasions. It also expands the Marvel universe -- setting is very important to me. I like to feel like I'm visiting places in science fiction movies (like in the original six Star Wars movies, and Rogue One, and Solo), and Ragnarok gave me that sense. Asgard felt like a place with a history, and Hela's backstory implies a broader universe. The garbage planet felt like a place, it had its own culture, hierarchy, etc and we meet all sorts of creatures there. The network of worm holes suggests how large and diverse the Galaxy must be in terms of number of worlds (visual storytelling). They say that it would take 18 months to get to Asgard via Xandar otherwise, that's nice, really outstanding line of dialogue.

The garbage planet also reminded me of the garbage planet from the 1980s Transformer movie, it was just as good and they had the same story arc, and a good musical score too Thy get into combat there, they liberate the slaves and overthrow the tyrant, and they leave with a ship with the liberated slaves as help to go fight the true enemy

 

[DA_Champion]

That's not my experience whatsoever. I joked with my mother and sister during the limo ride to my dad's burial and spent the rest of the afternoon hearing funny stories from family, friends and his co-workers. Humor and tragedy are intertwined in life, and to separate them out because certain folks are under the mistaken impression that that's not "grown up" is ridiculous.

Laugh through the tears, smile through the pain. That's life.

Some say that the evolutionary purpose of laughter is to cope with tragedy.

I also laughed at some moments relating to my father's burial, those moments helped and they are good memories. However, I wasn't laughing the entire time. There were also periods of crying, and periods of rage. Every emotion matters in life, not just humor.

So, yes humor is great during funerals, but at specific moments. I realize that it's hard to explain but there you go. Moreover I separately gave the examples a few pages back of the great Hollywood epics such as Gladiator and Fellowship of the Ring. Those are great epics in their own right, and they would not work with an inundation of zingers. Comedies are great too but there's value in having the full spectrum of styles represented.

 

[Ms. Marvel]

That's not my experience whatsoever. I joked with my mother and sister during the limo ride to my dad's burial and spent the rest of the afternoon hearing funny stories from family, friends and his co-workers. Humor and tragedy are intertwined in life, and to separate them out because certain folks are under the mistaken impression that that's not "grown up" is ridiculous.

Laugh through the tears, smile through the pain. That's life.

I agree.

 

[Iceman]

Ragnarok is a movie that I was able to enjoy on not just one but even on two viewings, and thus it qualifies as an exceptionally good CBM.

It's not just that the jokes are funny, though they are. The visuals and the music are improved from what we usually get from Marvel ... I can watch the end credits as a music video, and in fact I have on a couple occasions. It also expands the Marvel universe -- setting is very important to me. I like to feel like I'm visiting places in science fiction movies (like in the original six Star Wars movies, and Rogue One, and Solo), and Ragnarok gave me that sense. Asgard felt like a place with a history, and Hela's backstory implies a broader universe. The garbage planet felt like a place, it had its own culture, hierarchy, etc and we meet all sorts of creatures there. The network of worm holes suggests how large and diverse the Galaxy must be in terms of number of worlds (visual storytelling). They say that it would take 18 months to get to Asgard via Xandar otherwise, that's nice, really outstanding line of dialogue.

The garbage planet also reminded me of the garbage planet from the 1980s Transformer movie, it was just as good and they had the same story arc, and a good musical score too Thy get into combat there, they liberate the slaves and overthrow the tyrant, and they leave with a ship with the liberated slaves as help to go fight the true enemy

I like when credits are worth watching in their own right. Music and stylised credits can help a lot.

 

[Flint Marko]

That's not my experience whatsoever. I joked with my mother and sister during the limo ride to my dad's burial and spent the rest of the afternoon hearing funny stories from family, friends and his co-workers. Humor and tragedy are intertwined in life, and to separate them out because certain folks are under the mistaken impression that that's not "grown up" is ridiculous.

Laugh through the tears, smile through the pain. That's life.

Well said. I was going to respond to that post with a similar story of my own with my grandmother's passing - it was a long, painful process for my entire family, but moments of levity and humor weren't scarce. Humor is how many people cope with stress, trauma, and loss.

I rewatched Jurassic Park yesterday for the first time in years. You know what happens after many of the tense moments? Dr. Grant saves the children from the falling jeep in the tree, Tim gets electrocuted and his heart stops, Malcolm is found bleeding and covered in debris after the initial T-rex attack, all these suspenseful moments are punctuated with a joke.

That's not to say that Marvel always employs humor as successfully as Spielberg, but I've always said that Fiege is, in a lot of ways, producing the modern-day Spielbergian blockbuster. That's why I couldn't help but roll my eyes a few pages back when someone compared Marvel's house style to Kurtzman & Orci - they all took influences from Spielberg, but Marvel actually does it right (for the most part....)

Spoiler

 

[2kt09]

I'm assuming that kind of humor is still more personal and contextual.
That's not what I come to find from the average MCU flick, but it is what I expect from the average Marvel flick.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I rewatched Jurassic Park yesterday for the first time in years. You know what happens after many of the tense moments? Dr. Grant saves the children from the falling jeep in the tree, Tim gets electrocuted and his heart stops, Malcolm is found bleeding and covered in debris after the initial T-rex attack, all these suspenseful moments are punctuated with a joke.

Jurassic Park is full of that type of thing.

Remember the famous scene in the jeep with the water in the cup vibrating as the T-Rex approaches? It is immediately followed by "Maybe it's the power trying to come back on." The whole movie is like that.

Even more amusing, it is exactly the sort of thing I'd say in that same situation.

 

[Mandon Knight]

That's not my experience whatsoever. I joked with my mother and sister during the limo ride to my dad's burial and spent the rest of the afternoon hearing funny stories from family, friends and his co-workers. Humor and tragedy are intertwined in life, and to separate them out because certain folks are under the mistaken impression that that's not "grown up" is ridiculous.

Laugh through the tears, smile through the pain. That's life.

I congratulate you for being able to do that. To me pain & suffering is pain and suffering and having my heart ripped out for any number of reasons of personal experience, for me, that moment is not to start pulling out a joke book or doing a stand up routine.

I never said anything about not being grown up or being 'adult' about facing such a situation. How people deal with tragedy is their own facing of mortality or death/pain/whatever that be and is so very personal.

All I'm saying, like others are noting is, the MCU have a propensity to throw in gags where they don't necessarily belong in some people's view, others will differ, as they have a right too.

 

[OutOfBoose]

I rewatched Jurassic Park yesterday for the first time in years. You know what happens after many of the tense moments? Dr. Grant saves the children from the falling jeep in the tree, Tim gets electrocuted and his heart stops, Malcolm is found bleeding and covered in debris after the initial T-rex attack, all these suspenseful moments are punctuated with a joke.

Not remotely the same. When Tim utters lines about the car it happens after 15-20 minutes of horror and carnage. Same with electrocution. There's plenty of room for thrills and tension in Jurassic Park and when it ends with a joke it's a good underlining moment so audiences can breath out after an extended action sequence.

 

[Flemm]

Well, in my experience, funerals, wakes and similar occasions can certainly be full of very intense mixed emotions, particularly if one can genuinely feel that the deceased has lived a full life. There is grief, but also a desire to celebrate. If it's a tragedy and a life taken too soon, then that can be more somber.

Regardless, I think that's a different case than punctuating tense or dramatic moments with levity in a blockbuster. There may be some root similarities, in the area of coping, or emotions simply over-flowing, but I think that as a device in these movies it's primarily a way of milking a given moment for two distinct reactions, instead of one.

It's also good from a character development standpoint, if it's handled well, since it can show the characters themselves coping with their anxiety or grief. That mirrors what the audience is doing, so it's another way to build a connection. Basically, the audience can be relieved that the script has broken the tension, just as the characters attempt to do so in the story.

It doesn't always work, it can be overdone, handled poorly, or feel too mechanical, but the idea is solid.

 

[Flint Marko]

Not remotely the same. When Tim utters lines about the car it happens after 15-20 minutes of horror and carnage. Same with electrocution. There's plenty of room for thrills and tension in Jurassic Park and when it ends with a joke it's a good underlining moment so audiences can breath out after an extended action sequence.

15-20 minutes of horror and carnage? That's just not true. Right before the car tumbles out of the tree, Grant and Tim have a humorous exchange about how their dad's never built them treehouses. Right before Tim gets electrocuted we see Grant pretending to be shocked to illicit laughter from the kids.

I never said it was a 1:1 comparison, but to say it "isn't remotely the same" is just dishonest. We're talking about four-quadrant PG-13 blockbusters that combine action, thrills, and humor. The parallels are baked into the cake.