Post by Waxer-n-boil on Aug 5, 2018 22:05:41 GMT
I was a moment from writing an epic poem outlining the history of cinema and touching on profound masterworks like Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor or Kubrick's 2001, and then I realized this boils down to two points.
1 - What the MCU thrives on is equal parts satisfaction and the age old concept of anticipation breeds desire. Now that might not sound like much of a revelation, but consider every film that comes out, we're simultaneously excited to be watching it, while also desperately longing for the eventual return of the other characters who aren't in this one. And it's that longing that adds to every film without Marvel having to do any teasing at all. A tasteful analogy would be like banging an entire cheerleading team and constantly saying "yes the blonde again! yes the brunette again! yes the latina again!" every time you rotated. When we were watching Dr. Strange, every last one of us was imagining how the first encounter with the main Avengers would go down, and the same with Ant Man. With Panther and Spidey it was reversed. We got their first interactions with the team, but then just below the surface every last one of us was wondering how great it was going to be to see them on their own, and it was that anticipation by itself that added to Civil War.
2 - But here's where the MCU fire burns brightest. And I mean literally here. Right here with the advent of the internet, we can also stoke that fire brighter than they ever could in, let's say the 70's. How great would it have been to see a Han solo movie (see what I did there), while the original Star Wars trilogy was going on. Or any of the other anthology films we're about to get. The internet itself is largely why those things can exist now, because the fan base has a way to grow and connect, and why they did not exist then. The MCU is a product unique to this generation specifically because of that, and because of it, it is the franchise that will always be known for ushering in the next evolution of cinema. Not Lord of the Rings, not the Matrix, but the MCU will be the franchise that will stand out for being the driving force in what the potential for cinema can really be.
Marvel the pinnacle of cinema!?! No! Just no! The pinnacle of superhero movies will always be the Nolan Batman movies. They are the closest thing to a comic book graphic novel on film. Marvel? Now that I got over laughing about your initial statement, they are mediocre at best but often shallow popcorn-munching cinematic junk food.
I will give Marvel credit for a few things. They started off their modern era with a sure thing: the most popular Marvel character, the Toby Mac Spider-Man trilogy. And it had low points but they didn't totally screw it up. And they pulled off one of the best character choices in the genre by casting Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. One other thing I will give them credit for is the unfolding and interconnection of the universe. They have done a good job with that. Once you get beyond those things it's mostly subpar Marvel ilk despite the visuals. And some of those had bad CGI moments.