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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 13:29:46 GMT
Nah, they just act like real people instead of standing around giving pompous speeches. And people make jokes, it's a part of life. Yeah. Giant robots who are trying to take over the world make stupid jokes all the time. You're right. It's better than pompous doomsday speechifying you'd get from a DC villain.
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Post by merh on Oct 24, 2017 13:36:57 GMT
So we go pre-DCEU to pull in Nicholson, but only MCU? Following your Nicholson inclusion (Why not the old Zod who was far more memorable?), why not Doc Ock? Magneto? Green Goblin? That is not the OP premise, merh. That being said, if we expand these parameters in your sense, Magneto would indeed be one of the greatest CBM-villains and the only one that is not totally eclipsed by the iconic DC rogue gallery like Joker, Lex Luther, Penguin, Catwoman et al. Note that I am talking about and limiting this to the Fox-Men holocaust-surviving Magneto, not the silly comic book version. That is not the point of discussion. That aside, from a writing theory angle, the MCU heroes are all very formulaic, beginning with their character ars, namely the all popular "Jerk goes through crisis, learns skills and becomes nice guy superhero" arc. We have seen this with Logan in the excellent X1 movie. And the same arc was reused for Iron Man (several times), Dr Strange, Antman, Thor etc (Cap has no arc except becoming BEEFCAKE).
That formulaic trope writing applies to the villains too btw, like with Magneto in MCU you will often find the popular old-friend-becomes-nemesis trope (IM, Thor etc).
I would hardly call this "feshing out" the heroes, it is just a collection of writing tropes, clichees and popular actors conveying the ilusion of character writing. And , in their respective origin stories the DC heroes are at least as fleshed out as the MCU ones, think Superman1 (the template for MCU films according to Feige), Batman Begins, Wonder Woman, and MOS. Going back to the characters as they existed in their comic book origins as I read them in the 1960s, EVERYTHING was formulaic. Bad guys were bad guys. Good guys were good guys. No real backstory. I have an early Thor where Loki attacks Thor as the son of Odin, Loki's enemy. No brother stuff mentioned. They were all wish fulfillment. Drink a potion, become Captain America. Shoot a few arrows & become Green Arrow or Hawkeye. They were kid stories like Saturday Morning Cartoons. All the rest is machinations to make them appeal to an older audience Steve Rogers was the 98 lb weakling who had sand kicked in his face figuratively until a magic potion made him a hero in an era many now can't comprehend, an era where boys lied about their age to join the army. His spirit was willing, but his body weak until science fixed it. How the HELL is that not an arc?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 13:39:50 GMT
Yeah. Giant robots who are trying to take over the world make stupid jokes all the time. You're right. It's better than pompous doomsday speechifying you'd get from a DC villain. No, dude. You were totally right. Superheroes and evil robots ALWAYS fire off nonstop quips when they trying to save/take over the world. That is 100% accurate. Great observation!
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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 13:50:55 GMT
It's better than pompous doomsday speechifying you'd get from a DC villain. No, dude. You were totally right. Superheroes and evil robots ALWAYS fire off nonstop quips when they trying to save/take over the world. That is 100% accurate. Great observation! It wasn't nonstop, for one thing. They just enjoyed themselves more than DC heroes do...which is not at all. If it's a choice between Ultron and Enchantress and/or Lex Luthor I'll take Ultron.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 13:52:52 GMT
No, dude. You were totally right. Superheroes and evil robots ALWAYS fire off nonstop quips when they trying to save/take over the world. That is 100% accurate. Great observation! It wasn't nonstop, for one thing. They just enjoyed themselves more than DC heroes do...which is not at all. If it's a choice between Ultron and Enchantress and/or Lex Luthor I'll take Ultron. AoU's dialogue is 60% quips confirmed.
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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 13:53:15 GMT
That is not the OP premise, merh. That being said, if we expand these parameters in your sense, Magneto would indeed be one of the greatest CBM-villains and the only one that is not totally eclipsed by the iconic DC rogue gallery like Joker, Lex Luther, Penguin, Catwoman et al. Note that I am talking about and limiting this to the Fox-Men holocaust-surviving Magneto, not the silly comic book version. That is not the point of discussion. That aside, from a writing theory angle, the MCU heroes are all very formulaic, beginning with their character ars, namely the all popular "Jerk goes through crisis, learns skills and becomes nice guy superhero" arc. We have seen this with Logan in the excellent X1 movie. And the same arc was reused for Iron Man (several times), Dr Strange, Antman, Thor etc (Cap has no arc except becoming BEEFCAKE).
That formulaic trope writing applies to the villains too btw, like with Magneto in MCU you will often find the popular old-friend-becomes-nemesis trope (IM, Thor etc).
I would hardly call this "feshing out" the heroes, it is just a collection of writing tropes, clichees and popular actors conveying the ilusion of character writing. And , in their respective origin stories the DC heroes are at least as fleshed out as the MCU ones, think Superman1 (the template for MCU films according to Feige), Batman Begins, Wonder Woman, and MOS. Going back to the characters as they existed in their comic book origins as I read them in the 1960s, EVERYTHING was formulaic. Bad guys were bad guys. Good guys were good guys. No real backstory. I have an early Thor where Loki attacks Thor as the son of Odin, Loki's enemy. No brother stuff mentioned. They were all wish fulfillment. Drink a potion, become Captain America. Shoot a few arrows & become Green Arrow or Hawkeye. They were kid stories like Saturday Morning Cartoons. All the rest is machinations to make them appeal to an older audience Steve Rogers was the 98 lb weakling who had sand kicked in his face figuratively until a magic potion made him a hero in an era many now can't comprehend, an era where boys lied about their age to join the army. His spirit was willing, but his body weak until science fixed it. How the HELL is that not an arc? Apparently it's because Steve didn't spout off speeches about how Love will save the world.
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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 13:53:47 GMT
It wasn't nonstop, for one thing. They just enjoyed themselves more than DC heroes do...which is not at all. If it's a choice between Ultron and Enchantress and/or Lex Luthor I'll take Ultron. AoU's dialogue is 60% quips confirmed. No, just not all doom and gloom.
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Post by charzhino on Oct 24, 2017 13:57:40 GMT
The point being that using the Holocaust to make your character seem deep is really just lazy. Especially when his current conflict has nothing to do with his past. They barely mentioned the Holocaust so hows its exploitative. The opening to X1 is the most theyve ever used holocaust centric footage. Exploitative would be having Eric use the words Nazis, Jews, concentration camp, holocaust in all his arguments repeatedly on screen but its barely mentioned at all precisely because Fox dont want to overuse it and cause offense. A few momentary glimpses like the serial number on his wrist is all we get not on the nose stuff. Nazis wanted a perfect race and exterminated Jews because Hitler viewed the Aryan race as superior and saw Jews as non-humans. He thought he was doing the world a favor. The issue with the X-Men is slightly different because the humans view mutants as a threat because of their capabilities. But in Erics mind the common denominator is he feels history repeating itself simply because of what he was born as. He was targetted simply for being born Jewish. Now hes being targetted for being born a mutant. And before you say, yes humans have legimate threats to be scared. It might not be explicitly shown in the films but its natural. Humans are hostile to other new/foreign humans who are vastly different. History and present day prove this. Just look at the immigration debate in America and Europe from the influx of Muslims. If mutation actually produced people like in the Xmen in real life, its entirely natural to think humans would be concerened and mutants would eventually dominate through social evolution alone. As is implied in First Class/DOFP with Charles's Oxford thesis on homo Neanderthalis becoming extinct from the superior homo sapien - something Trask warns the commitee about but is laughed out of the room.
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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 14:19:18 GMT
The point being that using the Holocaust to make your character seem deep is really just lazy. Especially when his current conflict has nothing to do with his past. They barely mentioned the Holocaust so hows its exploitative. The opening to X1 is the most theyve ever used holocaust centric footage. Exploitative would be having Eric use the words Nazis, Jews, concentration camp, holocaust in all his arguments repeatedly on screen but its barely mentioned at all precisely because Fox dont want to overuse it and cause offense. A few momentary glimpses like the serial number on his wrist is all we get not on the nose stuff. I'm talking about him saying the registration Act will put them in chains, X3 being a reference to being euthanized, X2 having mutants be experimented on, DOFP's future scenes showing them marked and in concentration camps, etc. It wasn't just Jewish people they did that to. But no one ever seems to remember or care about the other victimizes and exterminated. And plenty of Nazis didn't even believe in the racial superiority stuff. They just wanted an excuse to take over the country and conquer the world. And in this case, it's a rational fear. The X-Men movies should've shown us random mutant criminals who had no problem using their powers to terrorize people, but doing that would've made us see Senator Kelly as a 3-D Human Being. Believe me, I DO understand. If the movies gave us more moments like that, it'd be much more nuanced. Hell, give us a plot where there IS a conspiracy to turn Mutants into normal humans...and it's entirely comprised of Mutants who genuinely hate that they're mutants and are deformed instead of looking totally normal and attractive like Erik does.
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Post by charzhino on Oct 24, 2017 14:30:48 GMT
I'm talking about him saying the registration Act will put them in chains, X3 being a reference to being euthanized, X2 having mutants be experimented on, DOFP's future scenes showing them marked and in concentration camps, etc. Well how are they supposed to avoid those links, just leave the experimentation/concentration camps out of the films? And a lot of that happens in the DOFP comic. Conspiracy in turning mutants into humans, you mean the cure story from X3? And there are sub plots about mutants hating their visual appearance. Sam Worthington as a kid tries cutting his wings off. Toad in DOFP is shown to be unhappy. Mistique and Beast have the conversation in First Class where Hank mentions society wont accept us as beautiful looking like blue freaks. Nightcrawler in X2 feels people fear and hate him because he looks like the devil.
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Post by formersamhmd on Oct 24, 2017 14:41:44 GMT
Well how are they supposed to avoid those links, just leave the experimentation/concentration camps out of the films? Do something nuanced, like have it turn out that it was an army of mutants Magneto assembled that started the war and the Humans created the Sentinels as a last-ditch defense because they were losing so badly. The mutants take humans they capture and do stuff like experiment on them or use them for target practice. Things escalated and Earth has been devastated due to their mutual conflict. Xavier wants to change the past because both sides have done too much. To be honest, I didn't think the original DOFP comic was the masterpiece it's made out to be. The Sentinels in the comic were so weak and easily beaten the idea that they could take over the country and kill off all the non-mutant heroes and put the mutants in camps was pretty silly given how the Avengers have beaten enemies much more powerful and deadly. One headed solely by mutants, Humans having no hand in it. Oh yeah, the beautiful angel hates his wings. Give me a break. Then DO something with it![/quote]
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Post by Lord Death Man on Oct 24, 2017 15:38:59 GMT
That is not the OP premise, merh. That being said, if we expand these parameters in your sense, Magneto would indeed be one of the greatest CBM-villains and the only one that is not totally eclipsed by the iconic DC rogue gallery like Joker, Lex Luther, Penguin, Catwoman et al. Note that I am talking about and limiting this to the Fox-Men holocaust-surviving Magneto, not the silly comic book version. That is not the point of discussion. That aside, from a writing theory angle, the MCU heroes are all very formulaic, beginning with their character ars, namely the all popular "Jerk goes through crisis, learns skills and becomes nice guy superhero" arc. We have seen this with Logan in the excellent X1 movie. And the same arc was reused for Iron Man (several times), Dr Strange, Antman, Thor etc (Cap has no arc except becoming BEEFCAKE).
That formulaic trope writing applies to the villains too btw, like with Magneto in MCU you will often find the popular old-friend-becomes-nemesis trope (IM, Thor etc).
I would hardly call this "feshing out" the heroes, it is just a collection of writing tropes, clichees and popular actors conveying the ilusion of character writing. And , in their respective origin stories the DC heroes are at least as fleshed out as the MCU ones, think Superman1 (the template for MCU films according to Feige), Batman Begins, Wonder Woman, and MOS. Going back to the characters as they existed in their comic book origins as I read them in the 1960s, EVERYTHING was formulaic. Bad guys were bad guys. Good guys were good guys. No real backstory. I have an early Thor where Loki attacks Thor as the son of Odin, Loki's enemy. No brother stuff mentioned. They were all wish fulfillment. Drink a potion, become Captain America. Shoot a few arrows & become Green Arrow or Hawkeye. They were kid stories like Saturday Morning Cartoons. All the rest is machinations to make them appeal to an older audience Steve Rogers was the 98 lb weakling who had sand kicked in his face figuratively until a magic potion made him a hero in an era many now can't comprehend, an era where boys lied about their age to join the army. His spirit was willing, but his body weak until science fixed it. How the HELL is that not an arc? There's a lot to unpack in the idea that comic books and comic book movies need to be elevated to high literature and focus almost exclusively on metaphysical drama, existential angst, and pervasively dark themes. I wish it could be unfurled in a single post but, it can't. It goes far beyond the MCU vs. DCEU fanboy wars. The success of comic books and comic book movies is at the root of the problem. This success has increased the amount of “consumers” who seek to identify some intellectual merit in the artform without understanding, acknowledging or accepting its roots. A popular catchphrase you hear from the fanboy who will argue for his high-minded drama and depth in comic book movies is, that if you disagree, you've probably never read a comic book before. There's a lot of irony in that impotent and lazy attack. What they really mean to say is, "If you disagree, you've probably never read a graphic novel before." I blame Alan Moore for the fanboy's current state of cognitive dissonance. To make every comic book movie into a graphic novel, you have to deconstruct the wish-fulfillment fantasies that gave rise to the character in the first place. In so doing you create something that bears little resemblance to the source material it is derived from. (Although it may have merits on its own). The comic book medium does not need to be elevated to the stature of classical literature. Comic books are about close calls, near misses, and bold adventure. They don't need to be held aloft as sacred and inscrutable texts.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2017 15:52:25 GMT
Going back to the characters as they existed in their comic book origins as I read them in the 1960s, EVERYTHING was formulaic. Bad guys were bad guys. Good guys were good guys. No real backstory. I have an early Thor where Loki attacks Thor as the son of Odin, Loki's enemy. No brother stuff mentioned. They were all wish fulfillment. Drink a potion, become Captain America. Shoot a few arrows & become Green Arrow or Hawkeye. They were kid stories like Saturday Morning Cartoons. All the rest is machinations to make them appeal to an older audience Steve Rogers was the 98 lb weakling who had sand kicked in his face figuratively until a magic potion made him a hero in an era many now can't comprehend, an era where boys lied about their age to join the army. His spirit was willing, but his body weak until science fixed it. How the HELL is that not an arc? There's a lot to unpack in the idea that comic books and comic book movies need to be elevated to high literature and focus almost exclusively on metaphysical drama, existential angst, and pervasively dark themes. I wish it could be unfurled in a single post but, it can't. It goes far beyond the MCU vs. DCEU fanboy wars. The success of comic books and comic book movies is at the root of the problem. This success has increased the amount of “consumers” who seek to identify some intellectual merit in the artform without understanding, acknowledging or accepting its roots. A popular catchphrase you hear from the fanboy who will argue for his high-minded drama and depth in comic book movies is, that if you disagree, you've probably never read a comic book before. There's a lot of irony in that impotent and lazy attack. What they really mean to say is, "If you disagree, you've probably never read a graphic novel before." I blame Alan Moore for the fanboy's current state of cognitive dissonance. To make every comic book movie into a graphic novel, you have to deconstruct the wish-fulfillment fantasies that gave rise to the character in the first place. In so doing you create something that bears little resemblance to the source material it is derived from. (Although it may have merits on its own). The comic book medium does not need to be elevated to the stature of classical literature. Comic books are about close calls, near misses, and bold adventure. They don't need to be held aloft as sacred and inscrutable texts. I don't know any DC fan who argues that CMBs need to be dark or "high literature." Just that they're fine with a director putting their own spin on stuff. On the contrary, just about every MCU Zealot here (and elsewhere) argues that CBMs need to be light and fun. That's why a lot of them have to pretend like they hate Logan (or think it's overrated). It doesn't fit that mold, so it leads to worldview-shattering butthurt. DC fans are perfectly fine with light AND dark CBMs. Just do what fits the character. If you want to do a more realistic take on Superman, then go for it. It'll either stand or fall on its own merits. But MCU Zealots get BUTTHURT AS FUCK when CBMs don't have stupid quips, an ugly digital color palette, and a generic score. Variety is Public Enemy #1 to an MCU Zealot. Weird!
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Post by claudius on Oct 24, 2017 15:56:52 GMT
Actually, the post-Silver Age Magneto (starting under the pen of Chris Claremont) was the holocaust-surviving version who at one point attempted redemption and temporarily became Headmaster to the School for Gifted Youngsters.
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Post by Lord Death Man on Oct 24, 2017 16:08:16 GMT
There's a lot to unpack in the idea that comic books and comic book movies need to be elevated to high literature and focus almost exclusively on metaphysical drama, existential angst, and pervasively dark themes. I wish it could be unfurled in a single post but, it can't. It goes far beyond the MCU vs. DCEU fanboy wars. The success of comic books and comic book movies is at the root of the problem. This success has increased the amount of “consumers” who seek to identify some intellectual merit in the artform without understanding, acknowledging or accepting its roots. A popular catchphrase you hear from the fanboy who will argue for his high-minded drama and depth in comic book movies is, that if you disagree, you've probably never read a comic book before. There's a lot of irony in that impotent and lazy attack. What they really mean to say is, "If you disagree, you've probably never read a graphic novel before." I blame Alan Moore for the fanboy's current state of cognitive dissonance. To make every comic book movie into a graphic novel, you have to deconstruct the wish-fulfillment fantasies that gave rise to the character in the first place. In so doing you create something that bears little resemblance to the source material it is derived from. (Although it may have merits on its own). The comic book medium does not need to be elevated to the stature of classical literature. Comic books are about close calls, near misses, and bold adventure. They don't need to be held aloft as sacred and inscrutable texts. That's awesome but, I don't recall mentioning any DC fans at all in my post. In fact, I went out of my way to say that the issues I was discussing exceeded the fiefdom of MCU vs. DCEU fanboy wars. Your conditioning is showing through in your response. Many fans on both sides of the isle appear to be similarly effected by this strange form of PTSD. None of this helps to ease the misunderstanding that is prevalent between the two camps. And, I'm sorry to say that if you spend all of your time pointing the finger at the other camp, that shows a marked lack of maturity. Have you ever considered that it might be you who becomes severally butthurt if a movie is seemingly stacked with quips? What did quips ever do to you? They don't cause cancer and nobody ever died from hearing one or two or even three of them in rapid succession. If a Marvel fan says your film is inferior because it lacks quips, how does that hurt you? The only way I could see it being a problem is if you were insecure about what you like in the first place. Yeah, I know, it is kind of weird.
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Post by Tristan's Journal on Oct 24, 2017 16:14:30 GMT
Steve Rogers was the 98 lb weakling who had sand kicked in his face figuratively until a magic potion made him a hero in an era many now can't comprehend, an era where boys lied about their age to join the army. His spirit was willing, but his body weak until science fixed it. How the HELL is that not an arc?
It's not a character arc, merh. It's just shit happening...motivational stuff with a quantum of wish fulfillment by "a wizard/magic potion did it". You can like it.
Keep those kitties save from the cougars and raptors roaming. Peace.
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Post by Tristan's Journal on Oct 24, 2017 16:21:20 GMT
Actually, the post-Silver Age Magneto (starting under the pen of Chris Claremont) was the holocaust-surviving version who at one point attempted redemption and temporarily became Headmaster to the School for Gifted Youngsters. sir, I am terrible at informed nerd speak. Am I reading you right? The thing MCU fans relentlessly bitch about as lazy, exploitative and being "ashamed-of-comic-books" since a decade was originally Marvel's (brilliant) idea, not Fox's?
If so:
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Post by Skaathar on Oct 24, 2017 16:49:23 GMT
I feel like people are missing a big point in the OP, which is that DC has a lot more over-the-top, campy villains.
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Post by justanaveragejoe on Oct 24, 2017 17:41:03 GMT
The big difference is that in Marvel the real meat of the story comes from the protagonist, their character flaws and the internal conflict they get from their allies and friends. The villain is mainly just a plot device, an obstacle to be overcome. Which gets boring after 10+ years seeing heros battling so called supervillains, defeating them easily and barely leaving with a scratch rinse and repeat. The villains should be the source of the heros conflicts and should challenge them to beyond their physical/mental limit to their breaking point. MCU villains in general dont do that, as you say they're just plot devices which is why lots of fans and critics keep bringing up Marvels recurring villain problem. That's pretty much all superhero movies, not just the MCU.
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Post by coldenhaulfield on Oct 24, 2017 18:05:50 GMT
All fads rise and fall. "Another 10" years you say, with skeletal chest puffed out proud? Let's see where it is in thirty years, kiddo. We already know they'll be making big-budget Batman and Superman movies... Hee hee hee... I'm sure people thought James Bond was a fad too. The Marvel characters are here to stay. "You don't really think you'll win, do you?"
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