Superhero Cinematic Civil War - Part 57

[Kahran Ramsus]

Honestly, I am glad Daredevil ended up on Netflix. I don't think that Marvel Studios would have done better with him.

And Punisher. And Jessica Jones. I can't see Disney handling Purple Man anywhere near as well as Netflix did.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

That whole Jessica Jones first season was some good television. Punisher was just boring but then again I have to give it another try.

The Hand deserved better. One of the most badass factions in all of comics, and it was just adapted so-so. Still can’t believe they killed Sigourney off that fast.

 

[Zarex]

What is the ideal gauge for dark?

The first Iron Man movie pierced the protagonist and left him with a hole in his chest the size of Pepper Pott's fist, and we saw the hole without the techno core in it more than once.

Captain America: The First Avenger has a scene with multiple people disintegrating in a way scarier than the board of directors from the 2002 Spider-Man movie.

Iron Man 2 showed the protagonist being poisoned by the thing that was saving his life, and the gruesome decapitation of Ivan Vanko. Iron Man 3 shows people exploding left and right, amputated people, and then some.

The Winter Soldier showed us NAZIs in control of national and international security.

Captain Marvel shows a cat gouging a man's eye.

Spider-Man Homecoming showed us a villain mistakenly kill one of his underlings, and he's not the least bit traumatized by it. Later the same guy threatens to kill a kid.

In Avengers the council of security wanted to nuke a large city and mass murder millions of citizens just to push off an alien threat in callous cold blood, and we were later shown these were not among the NAZIs in control.


Is Daredevil darker because some guy jumped eye first to a sharp object in a fence and committed suicide, and another guy got his head beat up repeatedly by a car door until it was no more on his shoulders? This is strangely tame compared to the examples I've given from the aforementioned movies. The show is visually darker for sure, and has fewer jokes thrown here and there.

It seems like, for a lot of folks, a properly dark movie or show strips away most of the comic book conventions of the source material and limits the yuks while keeping itself grim, gritty and grounded. So a mobster killing another mobster with a car door is dark. A talking tree dissolving in front of his racoon chum? Not so much.

My preference is that adult MCU will be more comparable in tone to my favorite superhero TV show, The Boys rather than the Netflix Defenders. Real world issues handled in a serious fashion, but with an abundance of dark humor. Realistic characters and relationships experienced by folks with laser eyes while clad in colorful costumes. I doubt Feige and company will go down the Three GR route with their street level types, but I don't think that will necessarily make it any less "Adult".

 

[Spider-Fan]

It seems like, for a lot of folks, a properly dark movie or show strips away most of the comic book conventions of the source material and limits the yuks while keeping itself grim, gritty and grounded. So a mobster killing another mobster with a car door is dark. A talking tree dissolving in front of his racoon chum? Not so much.

No, the talking tree dissolving isn't considered dark because it wasn't dark. That scene was essentially the same as a Disney parent death. Darkness has nothing to do with stripping away comic booky elements. It is about tone, atmosphere, and situation. The Groot scene is sad, but it isn't dark. You can have dark moments with bright colored spandex, sure. I can agree there. But your framing of what people look for in something dark is a crap generalization. At least, the way you present it in your post is.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

I mean for the product we’re talking about, Infinity War was pretty dark. May not have had Kingpin slamming car doors in a guy’s head, or Elektra slicing people up but Thanos was pretty scary in that.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

No, the talking tree dissolving isn't considered dark because it wasn't dark. That scene was essentially the same as a Disney parent death. Darkness has nothing to do with stripping away comic booky elements. It is about tone and situation. The Groot scene is sad, but it isn't dark. You can have dark moments with bright colored spandex, sure. I can agree there. But your framing of what people look for in something dark is a crap generalization. At least, the way you present it in your post is.

Dark is a guy brainwashing the protagonist with his powers and raping her constantly night after night until she starts to catch on and then forces her to murder an innocent woman to prove a point. And she is so traumatized by the experience she becomes a bitter drunk who constantly engages in joyless, casual sex with men she just met to get some sort of limited escape from it all for a brief time.

 

[Zarex]

No, the talking tree dissolving isn't considered dark because it wasn't dark. That scene was essentially the same as a Disney parent death. Darkness has nothing to do with stripping away comic booky elements. It is about tone and situation. The Groot scene is sad, but it isn't dark. You can have dark moments with bright colored spandex, sure. I can agree there. But your framing of what people look for in something dark is a crap generalization. At least, the way you present it in your post is.

Bambi's mom's death wasn't dark?

 

[Spider-Fan]

Dark is a guy brainwashing the protagonist with his powers and raping her constantly night after night until she starts to catch on and then forces her to murder an innocent woman to prove a point. And she is so traumatized by the experience she becomes a bitter drunk who constantly engages in joyless, casual sex with men she just met to get some sort of limited escape from it all for a brief time.

Yep. Admittedly, Winter Soldier is a dark character, but even there by this point, the Hydra programming is gone and much of what made him dark has been resolved by now.

You also have to look at how things are framed and shot. MCU movies seldom use dark and natural lighting anymore. They have this artificial texture in most of their movies now. Which looks fine mostly, but it can at times limit mood lighting

 

[Spider-Fan]

Bambi's death wasn't dark?

Exception. Not the rule. Regardless, compare Bambi's mother to Groot dying. Totally different.

 

[Blade Hoarder]

Yep. Admittedly, Winter Soldier is a dark character, but even there by this point, the Hydra programming is gone and much of what made him dark has been resolved by now.

You also have to look at how things are framed and shot. MCU movies seldom use dark and natural lighting anymore. They have this artificial texture in most of their movies now. Which looks fine mostly, but it can at times limit mood lighting

The hydra thing was resolved five minutes into ultron.

 

[Detective Conan]

Happy December everybody!This is the last month of 2020(the strangest and darkest year so far), and fittingly it’ll probably be capped off with yet another creepy Kevin Spacey video.

But hey we’re getting WW84 this month, which looks really fun. So this year won’t end on a total bust as far as the genre is concerned. That’s assuming the movie is good though.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

What is the ideal gauge for dark?

The first Iron Man movie pierced the protagonist and left him with a hole in his chest the size of Pepper Pott's fist, and we saw the hole without the techno core in it more than once.

Captain America: The First Avenger has a scene with multiple people disintegrating in a way scarier than the board of directors from the 2002 Spider-Man movie.

Iron Man 2 showed the protagonist being poisoned by the thing that was saving his life, and the gruesome decapitation of Ivan Vanko. Iron Man 3 shows people exploding left and right, amputated people, and then some.

The Winter Soldier showed us NAZIs in control of national and international security.

Captain Marvel shows a cat gouging a man's eye.

Spider-Man Homecoming showed us a villain mistakenly kill one of his underlings, and he's not the least bit traumatized by it. Later the same guy threatens to kill a kid.

In Avengers the council of security wanted to nuke a large city and mass murder millions of citizens just to push off an alien threat in callous cold blood, and we were later shown these were not among the NAZIs in control.


Is Daredevil darker because some guy jumped eye first to a sharp object in a fence and committed suicide, and another guy got his head beat up repeatedly by a car door until it was no more on his shoulders? This is strangely tame compared to the examples I've given from the aforementioned movies. The show is visually darker for sure, and has fewer jokes thrown here and there.

Erm, when was Ivan Vanko decapitated in IM2? Also we never once see directly into Tony's wound in the first Iron Man.

 

[Fosterson]

Personally, I take the view that dark ≠ automatically great content. There are plenty of dark movies that are terrible, and there are plenty of more light-hearted ones that are great.

When it comes to CBMs, I can appreciate films like GOTG or Ragnarok that have a lot of humour, just as I can appreciate ones that take themselves more seriously like TDK or Logan.

Making something dark does instantly mean that it'll be better. I always remember how Zack Snyder said he would have "improved" TDK by including a scene where Batman got raped in prison. Would that REALLY have made TDK better? I think not.

 

[Fosterson]

Yep. Admittedly, Winter Soldier is a dark character, but even there by this point, the Hydra programming is gone and much of what made him dark has been resolved by now.

You also have to look at how things are framed and shot. MCU movies seldom use dark and natural lighting anymore. They have this artificial texture in most of their movies now. Which looks fine mostly, but it can at times limit mood lighting

That's a common problem with green screen. And it should be less of a problem going forward given that movies like Thor: L&T are going to be using the virtual set tech from Mando instead of traditional green screen, which allows natural light to be simulated a lot better and more easily since the VFX artists don't have to waste time editing out the ugly green reflections on the actors and props.

 

[Zarex]

Exception. Not the rule. Regardless, compare Bambi's mother to Groot dying. Totally different.

Exception? I could name about a dozen other Dark Disney Deaths, including Mufasa & Nemo's mom (I think Disney animators may have some parental issues to work out).

Anyhoo, what I was trying to convey in my crap generalization was that some folks use "dark" as an equivalent to "mature" and/or "adult". And praise movies that ditch the humor, costumes, powers and ambulatory flora in order to appeal to an audience that's sick of all these silly CBMs.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Exception? I could name about a dozen other Dark Disney Deaths, including Mufasa & Nemo's mom (I think Disney animators may have some parental issues to work out).

Anyhoo, what I was trying to convey in my crap generalization was that some folks use "dark" as an equivalent to "mature" and/or "adult". And praise movies that ditch the humor, costumes, powers and ambulatory flora in order to appeal to an audience that's sick of all these silly CBMs.

Never said Disney NEVER had dark deaths in them. But your average death scene is closer to Frozen than Bambi.

We are having different conversations. You are trying to argue something I never argued. Daredevil comics don't ditch comic book iconography, but they are still dark none the less in most eras of the book that are highly regarded (not all....most). Yes, something being dark doesn't make it good and we agree that we can maintain a comic books style while keeping a darker aesthetic. My entire argument to date is the MCU largely has not attempted to do this with the movies. Only really TWS is what I would call dark movie overall. Every other movie may have odd dark moment or dark joke here and there, but they largely like things to be fluffier and more fun. My point is, that is not when Daredevil has thrived historically. Until they try something that taps into that darker feel and atmosphere, I have legitimate concerns about it.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Personally, I take the view that dark ≠ automatically great content. There are plenty of dark movies that are terrible, and there are plenty of more light-hearted ones that are great.

When it comes to CBMs, I can appreciate films like GOTG or Ragnarok that have a lot of humour, just as I can appreciate ones that take themselves more seriously like TDK or Logan.

Making something dark does instantly mean that it'll be better. I always remember how Zack Snyder said he would have "improved" TDK by including a scene where Batman got raped in prison. Would that REALLY have made TDK better? I think not.

I agree 100%. This is not the argument I am having. Not everything needs to be dark, but some characters have more success in dark stories than they do fluffier ones. Most eras of Daredevil that have high regard have been darker takes. Same can be said of Batman. So if you want to put the character in a position to produce the best quality product, stick with what works for that character. Which means it needs to be less fluffy given history.

What would make me nervous is Marvel tries to fit Daredevil into the current MCU movie formula. Do people want a Daredevil film that feels like Doctor Strange in tone for example? I don't. I think since most of their films have ended up pretty close to that tonally speaking, it is a concern I feel is valid.

 

[Fosterson]

I agree 100%. This is not the argument I am having.

I wasn't responding to you in particular, just the topic in general

Not everything needs to be dark, but some characters have more success in dark stories than they do fluffier ones. Most eras of Daredevil that have high regard have been darker takes. Same can be said of Batman. So if you want to put the character in a position to produce the best quality product, stick with what works for that character. Which means it needs to be less fluffy given history.

What would make me nervous is Marvel tries to fit Daredevil into the current MCU movie formula. Do people want a Daredevil film that feels like Doctor Strange in tone for example? I don't. I think since most of their films have ended up pretty close to that tonally speaking, it is a concern I feel is valid.

I can see that reasoning, although its worth noting that Marvel have already made some of their characters much lighter than they are in the comics. For example, MCU Thor is FAR more comedic than he's usually portrayed as being in the comics, and yet people love Thor now way more than they did than when they portrayed him in a more comic-accurate way in the first 2 movies.

I don't think anyone would have predicted that turning a movie about the destruction of Asgard into a straight-up comedy would have worked and yet Ragnarok ended up being one of the most critically acclaimed CBMs of all time.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I wasn't responding to you in particular, just the topic in general



I can see that reasoning, although its worth noting that Marvel have already made some of their characters much lighter than they are in the comics. For example, MCU Thor is FAR more comedic than he's usually portrayed as being in the comics, and yet people love Thor now way more than they did than when they portrayed him in a more-comic accurate way in the first 2 movies.

I don't think anyone would have predicted that turning a movie about the destruction of Asgard into a straight-up comedy would have worked and yet Ragnarok ended up being one of the most critically acclaimed CBMs of all time.

True, but I think Ragnarok works really well for Thor in a way that I do not for Daredevil. Would that have been how I saw it going for Thor before seeing the movie? No and I loved that movie. But, the Avengers films with the exception of TWS have been heavily comedic. Even CW, which has some of TWS's tone still has plenty of good old Avengers romp to it as well. Some guys are just not.....romp guys.

Plus, I don't see the value in rebranding Daredevil in that way when the Netflix show is as highly regarded as it is.

 

[Detective Conan]

Personally, I take the view that dark ≠ automatically great content. There are plenty of dark movies that are terrible, and there are plenty of more light-hearted ones that are l

Making something dark does instantly mean that it'll be better. I always remember how Zack Snyder said he would have "improved" TDK by including a scene where Batman got raped in prison. Would that REALLY have made TDK better? I think not.

...That isn’t what Zack said or meant. You misrepresented his comments. He only said that a scene of Batman getting sexually violated could happen in Watchmen as a way to illustrate his point that the darkness of Nolan’s Batman movies(or Batman in general) pales in comparison to the darkness of Watchmen. Which is technically true. Watchmen has stuff like a child molester feeding their dog the remains of his victim he butchered to pieces. Forget his Batman movies - that level of darkness is something you’d never see in just about any Chris Nolan movie. Let alone in most Batman media. The Nolan Batman movies, in particular, look like fun, breezy, Marvel movies like Ant-Man by comparison.

 

[Sithborg]

Snyder is a bad source for discussion about "darkness". He tries to be edgy to be "edgy".

Winter Soldier, as good as it is, still loses a lot of "darkness" points for chickening out on the central conceit. Frankly, Iron Man is the most dark movie, because it deals with real world violence and war.

 

[kguillou]

Actually, the MCU’s most straight faced film is Incredible Hulk. The tone in Incredible Hulk was never present in any subsequent MCU film including TWS.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Snyder is a bad source for discussion about "darkness". He tries to be edgy to be "edgy".

Winter Soldier, as good as it is, still loses a lot of "darkness" points for chickening out on the central conceit. Frankly, Iron Man is the most dark movie, because it deals with real world violence and war.

I would say Civil War because it is the most pessimistic and the one with the least black and white view on morality. It isn't as simply as good vs. bad. Both sides make mistakes, it breaks the Avengers apart, a bunch of innocent people are lost in the crossfire, and there is no happy ending where they get back together. Even Zemo is far more sympathetic than just about any other MCU villain (other than maybe Ghost from Ant-Man & Wasp).

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Erm, when was Ivan Vanko decapitated in IM2? Also we never once see directly into Tony's wound in the first Iron Man.

I wanted to gif it, but then I saw that's I remember it wrong.
Iron Man 2 is not a memorable movie to me, but that multi explosions battle ending that includes suicide makes it even darker.

 

[MadVillainy]

Snyder is a bad source for discussion about "darkness". He tries to be edgy to be "edgy".

Winter Soldier, as good as it is, still loses a lot of "darkness" points for chickening out on the central conceit. Frankly, Iron Man is the most dark movie, because it deals with real world violence and war.

Yeah for sure Iron Man is the darkest. And it shows you can make a serious movie and still have it be fun and exciting.

Those cave scenes were not played for levity or laughs at all. It felt realistic or at least as realistic as a concept of Iron Man can beThe whole scene of Tony flying over and killing the terrorists, there was weight to the action scenes, etc. It's funny though because it's no darker than the standard blockbuster up until about 2012-2014 when most blockbusters, not just the MCU, got really sloppy with their tones.
----------------------------
I think CW for sure is not really dark or "serious." I never got this take. It tries to but falls flat. Like it's a bunch of half measures similar to what Sithborg says about TWS.

-There are moral dilemma questions that comes up heavy in Act 1, but by the end of the movie (and for sure in the MCU future) the moral dilemma isn't even the crux or emotional core. Bucky is. So the moral stuff seems to only serve to have the Avengers arrested, which they could've done by just having them all side with Bucky.

-The heroes splinter, but it's kinda hollow because Cap sends Tony that message that basically was "Well that escalated quickly. I mean that really got outta hand! But we cool right? Well if you need me, I'm around"

-The heroes all fight, but you have silly stuff like "You're pulling your punches" and "We're still friends right?" and so many of them are firing off jokes or have comedic bits during it that all the weight or "darkness" of it is gone. It's just the cinematic equivalent of a kid taking his action figures and smashing them together.

-Rhodey gets crippled but he doesn't blame any of the them and he gets his robotic walking helpers, so it's kinda like what's the point of that?

-Team Cap is arrested, but they're broken out by the end of the movie.

-Team Cap has to go on the run but they seem relatively fine when we next see them in IW. Cap is really they only scruffy one. Falcon still has a fresh cut, Widow still looks good, and even Wanda finds a way to meet up with her love interest. You don't get the feeling that being on the run really affected them much. Hell even Tony doesn't seem that that affected the next times we see him in Homecoming or IW

-Bucky killed Steve's parents but that never really comes back up in later film so again it's kinda like what was the point?

-Them lowballing the number of deaths in all those major MCU events

-The ending isn't happy, but someone said the realest thing about CW. I forget who the member was but they said "I don't expect anything that happened in Civil War to really matter after the first act of IW" and I think I kinda feel that. Of course the Avengers are split up and that's the big thing, but the reason Tony doesn't call Cap isn't because he's mad at him. It wasn't like he threw away the phone and said "Forget Cap, we can stop Thanos ourselves." (which I think would've made it better and way more heartbreaking if that's why they lost).

-I for sure don't think the ending is pessimistic as all. As I stated before in the other points most of the stuff like: Tony and Steve fighting, Wanda and Vision going their separate ways, Team Cap being in prison, Rhodey being seriously injured are kinda handled with kid gloves by the end or are resolved by Act I of IW.

All of that doesn't seem that dark or serious to me at all. It's serious the same way a butter knife is sharp. And no I'm not saying "it's not serious because it's not TDK, Logan level of serious and dark." But I still don't think taking a bunch of half measures makes for a serious or dark piece of work.
If anything I say IW is way more serious feeling due to feeling of desperation and pain the heroes have throughout. Sure everyone who is dusted at the end is undone in EG, but yeah that feeling of desperation, all of those scenes with Thanos is on screen, the death of Gamora which wasn't some cool sacrifice myself to save everyone thing, Peter "I told you to go left" scene on Knowhere are really more mature and serious than anything done in CW. I mean I guess grading on a curve, it's more serious than most of the other MCU. But that doesn't say much. Especially compared to the first Iron Man or IW.