They were never high art, IMHO.
Two things, FF was its own animal, I am glad it was. The deviations from the source material, were in some part probably due to uncertainty with the franchise and the cost of doing five characters as opposed to two in a big budget movie.
They had to make it work, so Doom was changed. I understand why they did it so I am not going to kill them. These movies have to work at the box office or they are dead, period.
Spiderman is one character, if you notice the comic book movies that have one character seem to work better than the ones with multiple heroes and villains because it is harder to do all these characters.
Ghost Rider seems to have suffered from that in the fight scenes.
We crap on hollywood all the time and sometimes it is deserved but understand this these are huge unique big budget properties. Studios have to find ways to keep the costs down or the movies can't be made.
In all honesty the better a movie does the bigger will be the budget, the attention to detail and stuff.
I loved X3, some people hated it because of what they did to Cyclops and I agree this was unecessary, I think it did not hit me as hard because I am not a big Xmen fan.
If they had messed up the Torrch or Reed ot the Thing or Susan I would have been more agitated but the changes were minor.
In Xmen I thought they overeached with trying to throw all these characters in (to please the fans) who ate them alive because they had to work around Cyclops Superman turn.
Now Fox may have rushed to do the movie but I am glad they did as opposed to waiting on Singer. Singer publicly stated his prference for SR and Fox as a company was left holding the check and they had to deliver. this is what happens with companies, you have to deliver on the earnings you promised your shareholders.
And time is money, you can't just say well I will make it next year, the stock exchange does not care about that, it is what have you done for me lately or what you will do in the next 4 quarters. If they had had another tentpole they could have slotted in they might have waited but they obviously did not.
Now I agree I want more, but at the same time we have to understand that the studios believe it or not are under immense pressures themselves to work within the confines they have and also try to please the fans.
I think the game said it best sometimes we get 1/4 sometimes 3/4 but we are getting something.
Man people waited 19 years for another superman film because one or two bombed.
Do you know how many people have died in those 19 years.
I want all the movies to be coming out like three every year or so.
It is like in the comics, some will be bland and some will be High Art, and yes some were High Art. That was the beauty of the comics that I read they seemed to be extraordinary pieces of literature with beautiful artistic renditions by men and women who are literally masters.
I mean these guys are better artists than some guys that are revered in paintings like Davinci and stuff.
I mean just look at what Jack Kirby created in his 100 issues, the inhumans, SS, Galactus, the Super Skrull, Doctor Doom the template for Darth Vader and all his tech drawings. His templates must have inspired hundreds of Sci Fi concept artists and the lab changes for FF2.
Who can argue that this is not cultural greatness at the highest level.
Billions of people watch or are familiar with these characters. James Marsden/Cyclops himself said the symbol of Superman is second only to the Cross (as it should be) in the modern day conciousness of humanity.
Now if that is not a staggering reality of the impact of the age of heroes then I do not know what is.
In all of us the heroes represent that ultimate hope that somewhere, somehow, good.... the ultimate bation of light exists and that in every war against the depths of evil ultimately it prevails.
The story of Galactus is a great example, in its purist form it is the story of God judging the earth and man's desperate need for a saviour, someone who will stand in the middle and cry out on our behalf.
What higher art could there be.
The producers, writers, directors, movie going public may not realize this but there is a reason these movies make so huge an impact at the box office.
It is because they are what they are, stories of epic struggles ala LOTR that mirror our own subconcious awareness and the realities of our times.
They are shadows of the lessons of history, that our exisitence is precious and is a struggle and that in the history of the world, despite the wars, famines, and the threats of terrorists, goodness and light will never be extiguished by the the rise of evil no matter how desperate the times.
So yes the comic books and the movies can be and often are High Art and that is as it should be.
Now having waxed philosophically there for a while, let me say that of course these are movies and you want to come out feeling uplifted. That is the main reason I like the lighter fare, because in the darker comic books and movies sometimes it is hard to tell who is the hero.
Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don't. We are flawed men after all, and we are prone to mistakes.
We just have to learn to live with that reality until it ends.
please go do it some place else. And in the imortal words of Carnac The Magnificent, "may a sick dromedary squat in yout hot tub".
t: ) till I'm blue in the face as I would have years ago). As it stands the only real reason these films get made is just to cash in and it shows blatantly in the quality of the films themselves. The difference in quality between the SM films, Sin City, 300, etc. and the "others" is obvious. In the case of FF, Story, while not free of blame, I believe is having his imagination shackled by Fox as it seems he really is a genuine fanboy. Doom was inexcusable, no matter what the excuse for it.
Ok whatever again. He's the textbook deffinition of a troll, but whatever. Free speech ? And you want to stifle me ? Ok. Whatever for the 3rd time.
And that goes for all of you guys--nobody's an "idiot" for having a different opinion of this matter.
Then we will have to agree to disagree.
. IOW you could just be lying to yourself. now while I realize the other options are rather harsh, I simply don't know how to respond to someone who says something to the effect of (it was perfect even though there were mistakes). do you see the contradiction of that statement.
