The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown: The Future of Superhero Movies

[Mathim]

Inhumans trailer dropped. I have to say, they're having a hard time making it not look cheesy. That guy playing Maximus just isn't selling it quite as well as you'd expect the Inhuman version of Loki to. They never should have cancelled the movie, with the right budget they could have made it far better. Then they could have justifiably made it not just another rivals to the throne (Thor/Loki) or internal civil conflict (Black Panther/Erik Killmonger) story, maybe an alien invasion thing like their own version of Secret Invasion or whatever. Then they could be utilized without any trouble in the Infinity War conflict (since there's still no confirmation that the TV stuff will ever have any bearing on the movies.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sYF1SXcWqQ

[wander]

I have to disagree...

Maximus in the trailer is pretty much doing as he always has in the comics, he's not Loki, though I'd like to see him a bit more maniacal... It's clear his actor was cast due to his turn as Ramsey Snow and I was expecting Maximus to be more like that (which would have been pretty faithful to his comic representation).

I think budget could have gone to making the mook Inhumans a little more individualistic looking, they're always pretty unique, though maybe the ones shown have not undergone Terrigenesis, a good plotline (which they may or may not use) is trying to get on Earth as the terrigen crystals are more prevalent there than what they may have at Attillan on the moon.

As for the plot, it does look like they may be going (actually I'd say it's highly hinted at) the Silent War route, though with Maximus behind the attack on Earth instead of Black Bolt, plus rather than the reason being to regain terrigen crystals (though as above that can easily be a plot point), it's to find and capture Black Bolt.

Is it cheesy looking? It looks better than Agents of SHIELD and say, like Legends of Tomorrow and is miles less cringe than Supergirl. Looks on par with The Flash, IMO.

[SapphireStar]

According to reports The Flash is once again stuck in The Speedsters as the Big Bad mode again. They cast Billy Zane in a recurring role for Legends of Tomorrow as P.T. Barnum.

[mia h]

Nah, evil Barry already told everyone who season 4's big bad is going to be and The Thinker ain't no speedster. Also it's going to be interesting to see what they with Tala Ashe's character on LoT, they might want to avoid Isis for lots of reasons using the name of the Egyptian Goddess sets of all kinds of red flags.

[Mathim]

According to reports The Flash is once again stuck in The Speedsters as the Big Bad mode again. They cast Billy Zane in a recurring role for Legends of Tomorrow as P.T. Barnum.

I couldn't even get all the way through the first two episodes of LoT, and I was disappointed with Flash season 3, so I think I'm done with the CW-verse. It's just too overwhelming; 13-episode seasons of everything would have made it far more palatable but 23? That forcefully creates way too much to keep track of and yet tons of nothing too. I can't believe I'm saying this but it might be better if they were all just self-contained from the start. Marvel's doing very little of that with their TV stuff, at least on ABC (but then, the Netflix stuff was intended to do this from the beginning, I think Arrow decided that later on, didn't they?) And I'm a bit unhappy with some of the romantic pairings they went with, like Oliver and Felicity, she works way better with Ray Palmer. Plus...would it kill them to make someone other than a Speedster the big bad of any of the Flash's seasons? If they used their imagination, Mirror Master could have been just that.

[wander]

You're right with your complaints there. Marvel's tv shows were meant to link to the big movie releases, though then Marvel Studios split from the main company, so that put the kibosh on that. The Netflix stuff was meant to link together to become The Defenders from the beginning, Arrow was it's own thing and Flash only came about due to the popularity of his cameo, they wanted a spin-off with the speedster, though the cameo was to test the waters to see how audiences reacted.

Which I find strange, because the creators know the big fan complaints (Olly-Felicity, Speedster BBEGs in The Flash, etc), they just don't care about the (negative) fan responses about what they want to write.

Honestly I only like The Flash because the ladies are hot in it and occasionally it does SCIENCE! especially with time travel, which I dig. That's about it though.

[Mathim]

You're right with your complaints there. Marvel's tv shows were meant to link to the big movie releases, though then Marvel Studios split from the main company, so that put the kibosh on that. The Netflix stuff was meant to link together to become The Defenders from the beginning, Arrow was it's own thing and Flash only came about due to the popularity of his cameo, they wanted a spin-off with the speedster, though the cameo was to test the waters to see how audiences reacted.

Which I find strange, because the creators know the big fan complaints (Olly-Felicity, Speedster BBEGs in The Flash, etc), they just don't care about the (negative) fan responses about what they want to write.

Honestly I only like The Flash because the ladies are hot in it and occasionally it does SCIENCE! especially with time travel, which I dig. That's about it though.

I like the Flash's sense of humor (not the character, the show) and how it does so much to pay fanservice compared to the others. Plus the characters are more interesting than I feel the ones on Arrow are without getting super dark and monotone all the time. And the villains are leaps and bounds more awesome than Arrow's (and it's hard to take LoT seriously when their big bad is Vandal Savage who didn't seem anything like what we see in the previous animated versions, relying more on intellect than physicality.)

[CaptainNexus616]

Just got back from seeing Homecoming. To be honest it was good, and I got what I was expecting out of the whole Spider-Man/Iron Man relationship

With all of the other Spidey movies focusing on super serious tones this lighter tone was a refreshing change of pace.

Keaton's performance was great in my book.

IDK if it was just cause I'm in my twenties or.it just wasnt my preference I felt the movie slowed down with the some of the school moments. Guessing its due to I'm use to characters in the movies being hero mode full time. Where as a big chunk of Spider-Man's appeal has come from both the spider and the man's life outside the mask.

[Mathim]

Well, it's like I said, adult Spider-Man works so well because he can do his day job (photographer) while he's doing his web-slinging duties. Not so when he's still in high school.

[greenknight]

Well, it's like I said, adult Spider-Man works so well because he can do his day job (photographer) while he's doing his web-slinging duties. Not so when he's still in high school.

But if he's not in high school, it limits his everyman appeal with a primary segment of his readership.

[Mathim]

No, see, that's the misconception that the idiot corporate heads have fully bought into. The Avengers didn't make 1.5 billion by pandering to kids. Neither did Iron Man 3 (nobody knew from any of the trailers or anything they were going to waste so much time on that dumbass kid who went on to play a pretty decent Nightcrawler in the not-so-decent X-Men: Apocalypse movie), making 1.2 billion. Or Age of Ultron's 1.4 billion. Or Civil War's 1 billion+. He can be in his early twenties and in college, and still have the exact same appeal. Struggling with school (high school or not, we all get it) and work (for the grownups) while also doing his spidey thing, but also have a more mature set of things to deal with, there's no reason that couldn't have been just as viable if not more.

[wander]

Having him in college and part-time freelance photographing would probably play up more to his everyman appeal for the people in their 20s and early 30s who really are where most of the money from those billions come from, I'd say.

[Mathim]

Exactly. Not hard at all to find a good balance there, without pandering or looking desperate. But they just couldn't bring themselves to do something like that with him for whatever reason. Now it's going to be quite a long time before we get to see him doing something worthy of his legend. A feat of strength like lifting a train station to escape a collapsed tunnel...knocking out the Hulk...just something that would give me goosebumps like reading one of those comics did.

[CaptainNexus616]

Is it really that bad that younger audiences have a lead role hero closer to their age? When the other main roles are ranging from late twenties to early fifties in the MCU in terms of the character's and actor's age? When Spider-Man in particular started out in his teens in his origins in the comics?

Coming from someone who has watched the movie, there were A LOT of little kids there on opening night along with people in their twenties and up. Plus while he didn't exactly punch the Hulk it felt like he's taken the first step to making the legend because he DID do an iconic moment from the comics!

Like I said before, the high school parts really felt like the movie slowed down for me. However Spidey really developed during this movie, him starting out as a teen plays a big factor into his origin story of being the odd man out among the figurative and literal gods saving the world. He didn't have a Batman or Captain America mentor figure to teach him right or wrong when he first started out and in this movie it shows THIS IS STILL THE CASE, Iron Man has his eye on him but nothing else.

Plus If anything Holland will more than likely be a long term investment plan seeing as its been almost ten years since the original Iron Man that started the MCU.

So I say let the younger fans have this one, let them have the hero who has always been about taking responsibility. Doing the right thing over the easy/fun way out the first chance shows up. Let Spider-Man be an example for them to grow up with to do better in real life.

Being responsible for your actions and doing the right thing no matter what, is Spider-Man's legend.

[wander]

^ Those are also some very good points.

[mia h]

I don't want to judge something before seeing it but at the very least they need to find a new press person for New Warriors. Describing your new show as being about six people "learning to cope with their abilities in a world where bad guys can be as terrifying as bad dates," just sets off all kinds cheesy, bad writing alarm bells. If that was a tag line for a movie it would be straight to DVD and a bargain bin DVD at that.

[greenknight]

I don't want to judge something before seeing it but at the very least they need to find a new press person for New Warriors. Describing your new show as being about six people "learning to cope with their abilities in a world where bad guys can be as terrifying as bad dates," just sets off all kinds cheesy, bad writing alarm bells. If that was a tag line for a movie it would be straight to DVD and a bargain bin DVD at that.

Maybe "your" definition of bad date differs from mine, but if the bad guys can be that terrifying (implying they're usually less so), that sounds like a pretty okay place.

[wander]

I got some cringe from the casting... It's not even the proper New Warriors either, it's a combo of the NW and Great Lakers with all the people with powers that would work for low budget tv...

I'm getting a bit sick of the whole thing Marvel is doing with their kooky Archies comics BS with annoyingly petulent hipster characters that we're supposed to like (because every other person does in-universe, despite them being complete pretentious asshats) and the utter lack of actual superheros doing superhero things.

[mia h]

New Warriors is supposed to be a comedy but I'm just getting a vibe that it'll come complete with laugh track to let you know where the jokes are.

[Mathim]

Is it really that bad that younger audiences have a lead role hero closer to their age? When the other main roles are ranging from late twenties to early fifties in the MCU in terms of the character's and actor's age? When Spider-Man in particular started out in his teens in his origins in the comics?

Coming from someone who has watched the movie, there were A LOT of little kids there on opening night along with people in their twenties and up. Plus while he didn't exactly punch the Hulk it felt like he's taken the first step to making the legend because he DID do an iconic moment from the comics!

Like I said before, the high school parts really felt like the movie slowed down for me. However Spidey really developed during this movie, him starting out as a teen plays a big factor into his origin story of being the odd man out among the figurative and literal gods saving the world. He didn't have a Batman or Captain America mentor figure to teach him right or wrong when he first started out and in this movie it shows THIS IS STILL THE CASE, Iron Man has his eye on him but nothing else.

Plus If anything Holland will more than likely be a long term investment plan seeing as its been almost ten years since the original Iron Man that started the MCU.

So I say let the younger fans have this one, let them have the hero who has always been about taking responsibility. Doing the right thing over the easy/fun way out the first chance shows up. Let Spider-Man be an example for them to grow up with to do better in real life.

Being responsible for your actions and doing the right thing no matter what, is Spider-Man's legend.

Not necessarily, I just feel like it imposes certain unrealistic limits on him that he would be better off without (curfew, a rigidly set school schedule) which an adult would have more flexibility with. If Tony Stark had managed to pull some strings and allowed him to graduate early and be a part-time Stark corporation intern and spend the rest of his time being Spider-Man, then regardless of his age, that would work fine with me. It does, however, lose some punch having him be a joker when he's younger rather than a full-grown adult. And he may have started out as Spider-Man during his teens but as far as I've read, nothing actually interesting started happening (supervillains and the like) til he was into adulthood.

And I saw tons of little kids at every other showing of every other MCU movie (in spite of trying to avoid crowded theaters) so clearly there doesn't need to be a young lead to draw them in. Maybe it makes them a little happier but that's all it does, it doesn't do anything for profit. And he could easily start out his superhero gig as a twenty-something and still need to work out his moral compass, find a mentor, etc. Look at freaking 40-something-year-old Scott Lang and Hank Pym.

Glad to hear they did include something iconic, I want to get goosebumps while I watch it at some point. A long-term investment indeed, it would be interesting to see him still playing the role beyond 10 years if the franchise sustains itself without having to reboot. I know we're likely losing mostly everyone else who'll have been there from about the beginning (nobody tops RDJ, from 2008-present) and they all still look the same, but seeing this guy come into his own in half a decade or so would be significantly different than people already beyond the age where they stop developing.

And we aren't just letting the young folk have this one, we also let them have his scenes in Civil War where even Tony had to get meta for a second and criticize Peter for telling him he had 'homework'. This is why while I approve of Holland's Spider-Man, I'm not impressed with his Peter Parker (but that's more down to the writing than his performance.)

[CaptainNexus616]

So throwing speculations around right now. Defenders is roughly a month away now and is essentially the street level Avengers gathering for their big bad after their own adventures...are we taking bets their will be another Coulson sacrifice to officially make them a team?

[wander]

If they did, it'd have to be someone all four care about or is linked somehow between them. I'm not sure they have someone like that. Rosario Daweson's character has been involved in all of the series, so it kind of makes sense if they do go down that road (I'm not sure exactly if they would), it'd be her on the chopping block.

[Mathim]

So throwing speculations around right now. Defenders is roughly a month away now and is essentially the street level Avengers gathering for their big bad after their own adventures...are we taking bets their will be another Coulson sacrifice to officially make them a team?

Well, two problems with that; Elektra was already a 'sacrifice' so that doesn't need to happen again, necessarily. Also Jones and Cage have already been fucking so there's no bad blood or unfamiliarity between them to keep them from working together. Stick seems to be taking up the Nick Fury role and I'd say Dawson is doing the Coulson thing except that Coulson stayed consistent throughout the tenure of his run as a SHIELD agent, while Dawson has abandoned a career and changed her entire lifestyle because of these people. It wouldn't do to have her be killed after already taking away so much from her.

BTW, saw Spider-Man Homecoming. I'm still not a fan of Holland's Peter Parker, and they're going way too immature with him even for a high-schooler. Can't wait to see him grow up, which since his next film is several years away, he'll either be ready to graduate or already have done.
I'd like to hear others' opinions on this observation I made:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Tony says he wants to break the cycle of bad parenting while he's mentoring Peter. Yet his terribly hands-off approach seems to contradict this. Also leaving Peter with almost no supervision (or the wrong kind), and not giving him a similarly superpowered tutor (Vision seems to have a lot of free time) to test him in various situations was a terrible mistake. If he wants to prepare the kid for the real deal, a much better way of doing so could and should have been employed. That's why I gave Tony the finger when he was shrugging off Peter's accusations that he never listens and doesn't care enough.

Anyone else bothered by this too?

Oh, and about that iconic scene...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I thought it was a total waste. Because of how they framed it, Peter needing to lift the debris off of himself had far less impact than it should have. We had no sense of a ticking clock, no desperate fear that someone's life was in imminent danger like Aunt May or the Lizard, which were the two situations in the comics where this also happened. We had no idea how much weight he was having to lift, and it was all about himself rather than for someone else's sake. They could and should have waited for when it might have matched up with the comics' drama better.

[Mister Ugly]

Shadowrun Maybe!??

MU

https://youtu.be/IUiRz26L7Qg

[CaptainNexus616]

The second Defenders trailer just dropped.

https://youtu.be/D_6J9BqgonU

Not gonna lie, while Iron Fist left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm still excited to see these guys get together after their interactions in the trailer.