Gemini
Well-Known Member
seeing that ive seen X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 1-3 in theatres (in Canada so i guess thats kinda different) i'd say your wrong
Pros And Cons Of Superhero Movies
- Thread starter Reign Of The Supermen
- Start date
seeing that ive seen X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 1-3 in theatres (in Canada so i guess thats kinda different) i'd say your wrong
Joe Kalicki
Well-Known Member
He means that's where they'll premiere.
Of course they'll be released in the USA.
Of course they'll be released in the USA.
compound
Well-Known Member
To me, the fundamental problem with superhero movies is that superhero narratives -- as a genre with its own tropes and visual codes -- evolved from a serialized medium (comics). So it has the benefit of long-term storytelling, to tweak around with characters, mythologies, plot developments, and even "the rules of the game", in their fictional universe. When you attempt to compress that into the 2-3 hour limit imposed by feature films, you invariably end up with a lot of story-telling short-cuts, or narrative abbreviation, just to be able to cram in all the necessary plot points.
Spiderman 3 felt like a perfect example of this -- I felt like it would have worked better as a high-budger 12-hour HBO mini-series, spread out across 6 episodes or so.
Spiderman 3 felt like a perfect example of this -- I felt like it would have worked better as a high-budger 12-hour HBO mini-series, spread out across 6 episodes or so.
Ice
Teh Sexy Monkey Queen
Excellent post, good sir.
David Blue
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I'll start (and maybe finish) with positives, because on the whole I think these films are great. It's good that we have them. And the only reason I buy comics is that the movies got me interested again, and when I wanted to buy some comics it turned out Ultimate Fantastic Four was there to feed my need.
The first thing is that the movies can direct people to these great characters. The audience may follow them into the comics, or just watch the movies and DVDs, but either way it contributes to the legend.
Live actors can add a depth and feeling that goes beyond the small amount of information in a comic book panel, they can add nuance and interest, if they put in committed performances. It doesn't take that big an actor to do it either. Sure, Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne and Batman, sure Ian McKellen is great as Magneto, and the characters are deeper in consequence - you expect that. But so was Thomas Jane great as Frank Castle and The Punisher. He added something, and the long setup with his family and the chase with his wife added something to the legend - the tragedy and pathos of the character became richer. (Sometimes changes are not screwing things up, sometimes they are done in the right spirit and in a good way and they really are an improvement.)
These movies, full of over-the top action and stirring conflicts, are a feast for actors who want to swing from the hips. Look at Famke Janssen as Jean Grey and the Phoenix in the infirmary scene with Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), or Ben Foster making a name for himself as Spacker Dave in The Punisher (2004). This is the good stuff. You can say the actors would have been just as interesting in Ordinary People VII: Thoroughly Tedious People, but I don't think so.
These movies give a chance for actors who aren't A-list to shine. If you're right for the part you can have a go, even if you're young (like: somewhere near the right age for the character) and not yet established. Good actors like Hugh Jackman and Tobey Maguire have made themselves with superhero movies, and that's great. If we weren't getting superhero movies, with a licensing cost but also with the guarantee that some kind of audience will show up for anything but a Catwoman (2005), you'd be getting lots of star vehicles showing a narrow range of familiar faces (for safety / bankability) and I think it would be less interesting. It would also lead to a bizarre pap between the ages of the characters in action movies and the ages of the established stars playing them. We see enough of that anyway to make it obvious how it would go if there was no alternative to star power as an insurance policy.
We've gotten amazing amounts of wonderful music, like the music for X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), or for all the X-movies, really, in different ways. How else would that have happened?
We're seeing fantastic makeup, special effects, costumes - all kinds of eye candy. And eye candy is good.
The first thing is that the movies can direct people to these great characters. The audience may follow them into the comics, or just watch the movies and DVDs, but either way it contributes to the legend.
Live actors can add a depth and feeling that goes beyond the small amount of information in a comic book panel, they can add nuance and interest, if they put in committed performances. It doesn't take that big an actor to do it either. Sure, Christian Bale is great as Bruce Wayne and Batman, sure Ian McKellen is great as Magneto, and the characters are deeper in consequence - you expect that. But so was Thomas Jane great as Frank Castle and The Punisher. He added something, and the long setup with his family and the chase with his wife added something to the legend - the tragedy and pathos of the character became richer. (Sometimes changes are not screwing things up, sometimes they are done in the right spirit and in a good way and they really are an improvement.)
These movies, full of over-the top action and stirring conflicts, are a feast for actors who want to swing from the hips. Look at Famke Janssen as Jean Grey and the Phoenix in the infirmary scene with Hugh Jackman as Logan / Wolverine in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), or Ben Foster making a name for himself as Spacker Dave in The Punisher (2004). This is the good stuff. You can say the actors would have been just as interesting in Ordinary People VII: Thoroughly Tedious People, but I don't think so.
These movies give a chance for actors who aren't A-list to shine. If you're right for the part you can have a go, even if you're young (like: somewhere near the right age for the character) and not yet established. Good actors like Hugh Jackman and Tobey Maguire have made themselves with superhero movies, and that's great. If we weren't getting superhero movies, with a licensing cost but also with the guarantee that some kind of audience will show up for anything but a Catwoman (2005), you'd be getting lots of star vehicles showing a narrow range of familiar faces (for safety / bankability) and I think it would be less interesting. It would also lead to a bizarre pap between the ages of the characters in action movies and the ages of the established stars playing them. We see enough of that anyway to make it obvious how it would go if there was no alternative to star power as an insurance policy.
We've gotten amazing amounts of wonderful music, like the music for X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), or for all the X-movies, really, in different ways. How else would that have happened?
We're seeing fantastic makeup, special effects, costumes - all kinds of eye candy. And eye candy is good.
David Blue
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Again, I had ceased to be a comic fan and became one again because of the movies, so that's my perspective. I think this - I was about to say this can only do good, but then I remembered Catwoman (2005) - I see it as a very positive thing on the whole. People are seeing the edited best of the characters, in many cases, better than they would get if they bought comics randomly, and far, far cheaper.
Compare the cost of seeing each of the Spider-Man movies on the beautiful big screen to the cost of buying the whole Clone Wars saga as it came out. Which would do more to give you a love of the character, at a cost you could justify to yourself and your significant other?
Fantastic Four (2005) broke the great box office slump of 2005 by itself, and it wasn't even a polished movie. (As a Fantastic Four fan, I've got a serious case of envy for the kinds of movies that Batman and Spider-Man fans have been treated to.)
And the Blade franchise was chugging along nicely until that train wreck of a third picture. Blade (1998 ) shows it's possible to be cooler on the big screen than on the page. That alone is enough reason to praise superheroes at the movies, in my view.
You can make a steady profit with movies like that, with not too much risk. You don't have to shoot for the moon with the idea of making "great" amounts of money compared to the Shrek movies or bust.
Probably the movie to justify that concern about characters people don't know is Æon Flux (2005). But that was not a very good movie, and it came out after Catwoman (2005) had poisoned the well for bad babes and after Elektra (2005) hadn't been good enough to turn that negative impression around. And then came Ultraviolet (2006) with a new character, which in Australia at least went straight to DVD. So the theory that you can sell a comic book movie with nothing but a beautiful star has been tested four times and failed four times lately. I would not invest my money in the next bad babe that tests that theory again.
The obvious answer is that if you ask audiences to invest in a lesser known character, you need to provide more than the star. You need an exciting movie with assets like a hot romance, which none of the above movies had, and you need to provide things the audience came to see, like lots of Jennifer Garner in some reasonable film-able approximation of the classic red. And you need to not be swimming against that strong a current.
If you simply make a good movie with good acting, like Ron Perlman as Hellboy in Hellboy (2004), you can easily make enough on DVD sales to justify a sequel with a similar budget, which we will see. And as a fan, that's all I want.
Willverine
Well-Known Member
I'll agree with compound, because most comic books would be better adapted to a TV series on pretty much any network these days (HBO or otherwise... judging from Heroes or Lost, TV has come a long way since the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Hulk series).
However, the big screen doesn't bother me. When Spider-Man and X-Men first came out in theaters, I was 100% stoked. I still am. That's the comic book fan in me. From the time I was 7 years old, I was reading comics and often wishing that I could watch their adventures unfold on the big screen, or at least on video, without it being too cheesy (like the previous Punisher and Captain America films, most notably).
I can find plenty of faults with every comic book film that's come out in the last near-decade, but why? Unless I watch a movie and sit through it thinking "well, this sucks", I just sit back and enjoy it. Daredevil is an exception... I thought it was crap compared to the comics. Spidey, X-Men, Fantastic Four and Hulk, on the other hand, I was taken back to childhood, reading those books, loving the stories. That's what it's all about.
Though, if they ever start serializing those same stories on HBO, NBC or whatever network/cable station, I will watch it with the same childlike wonder. At 30 years old, that's why I still read comic books... because I still haven't given up on being a kid and embracing my imagination.
The movies are just a supplement, but they're pretty damned good if you ask me.
However, the big screen doesn't bother me. When Spider-Man and X-Men first came out in theaters, I was 100% stoked. I still am. That's the comic book fan in me. From the time I was 7 years old, I was reading comics and often wishing that I could watch their adventures unfold on the big screen, or at least on video, without it being too cheesy (like the previous Punisher and Captain America films, most notably).
I can find plenty of faults with every comic book film that's come out in the last near-decade, but why? Unless I watch a movie and sit through it thinking "well, this sucks", I just sit back and enjoy it. Daredevil is an exception... I thought it was crap compared to the comics. Spidey, X-Men, Fantastic Four and Hulk, on the other hand, I was taken back to childhood, reading those books, loving the stories. That's what it's all about.
Though, if they ever start serializing those same stories on HBO, NBC or whatever network/cable station, I will watch it with the same childlike wonder. At 30 years old, that's why I still read comic books... because I still haven't given up on being a kid and embracing my imagination.
The movies are just a supplement, but they're pretty damned good if you ask me.
Victor Von Doom
Fist of teh Internets.
Bump for an awesome thread.
Gothamite
Well-Known Member
Superhero movies are my bread and butter. Most of my top twenty films are probably superhero films.
Certainly, comics and TV are probably the ultimate medium for these bizarre, juvenile characters, but movies make them feel real in a way that isn't possible in any other medium. You get the music, you get the acting, you get more sophisticated dialogue, you get a larger-than-life 3-dimensional costume...I could go on and on.
The only problem with superhero movies is that, yes, some of them suck. The difference between a superhero movie and a comic or a TV show sucking is that they probably cost a couple hundred million more. If they suck, chances are, we won't get another movie for another 5-10 years. But really, who cares? At the end of the day, it's all just an escape. Sometimes you have to just sit back and wonder why you take it all so seriously.
Certainly, comics and TV are probably the ultimate medium for these bizarre, juvenile characters, but movies make them feel real in a way that isn't possible in any other medium. You get the music, you get the acting, you get more sophisticated dialogue, you get a larger-than-life 3-dimensional costume...I could go on and on.
The only problem with superhero movies is that, yes, some of them suck. The difference between a superhero movie and a comic or a TV show sucking is that they probably cost a couple hundred million more. If they suck, chances are, we won't get another movie for another 5-10 years. But really, who cares? At the end of the day, it's all just an escape. Sometimes you have to just sit back and wonder why you take it all so seriously.
Reign Of The Supermen
Well-Known Member
We are now possibly seeing the downward trend in Superhero movies,the exception was The Dark Knight. Which everyone knew would be good,but the Incredible Hulk. Which did slightly better than The Hulk,but did not fully live up to Marvel's hopes. What will happen now? Is this a sign of things to come?
Ice
Teh Sexy Monkey Queen
I doubt we're in the downward trend of superhero movies. With the 5 comic movies so far out this year, (Iron Man, Wanted, Hulk, Dark Knight, Hellboy II) they have combined (according to boxofficemojo.com) made $1.01 billion dollars. More than half came from Iron Man and Dark Knight alone.
Next year we'll only have 2- Watchmen and Wolverine (that I know of anyways), so it'll be somewhat of a "break", before they come back full force again in 2010.
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Ice
Teh Sexy Monkey Queen
It was delayed?
Ice
Teh Sexy Monkey Queen
Eh, it's still 2008, regardless.
thee great one
Master of TOG-fu.
But we didn't!
Hence the if.
ProjectX2
Don't expect me to take you with me when I go to s
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2009 looks like a crappy year for comic book movies then. Though I guess if all it has to compete with is Wolverine and maybe Punisher or whatever, then Watchmen will blow them out of the water easily.
Wolverine will be good. Watchmen might break movie theaters in two.
