Movies Marvel Studios in Crisis - A Variety Article

[moreorless87]

You are missing causality.

Why does the writing suck? The writing sucks because they were so focused on empowering a female lead that they skipped over the character development part and went straight to the end of the development arc.

They didn't want her to look weak. So...she was great at everything.

That's woke.

Why did the Little Mermaid suck? Because for some stupid reason they replaced yet another white character with a black one. They are rumored to be doing this again with Hercules.

Cleopatra sucked. Nobody wanted to watch it. Why? Because it's ridiculous. And by nature of "ma diversity and representation" you managed to piss off the entire country of Egypt.

The female Ghostbusters was woke because they thought it would be fresh and exciting to simply gender swap the players. Poorly written? Sure. But then they thought they had an easy win simply due to the gender swap.

Ripley was suppose to be a man. Was written as a man. And it wasn't until casting happened that they decided to gender swap. But literally none of her lines were changed to accommodate that swap. No queef jokes needed to remind us that we are so brave and so bold in making the hero of Alien a female.

You may be right in that there are "plenty of entertaining shows with female leads" but I haven't watched them. I'm currently watching Gen V. It's "ok" but it can fuck right off with the transgender sub plot. Not interested and my brain shuts off when I'm being sold on the virtue of gender dysphoria.

Bottom line here? Forced representation and girl power are the problem. The poor writing is downstream of that.

You think JJ Abrams is driven by a "feminist agenda"? the guy who had Kirk oogling Carol Marcus in her undies?

Theres a difference between looking to try and sell substandard content on the back of politics and actually being driven by said politics.

Someone like James Cameron who Sherdog loves, there is a film maker who is actually "woke", who genuinely seems to care about feminism and anti capitalism and made films with some genuine bite to them like Aliens.

Seems that the anti Woke crowd are very selective in what they consider woke, it only seems to be stuff of poor quality thats easier to criticize, stuff which generally only uses politics in a cynical fashion for marketing rather than actually having much substance to it.

 

[herpd807]

You think JJ Abrams is driven by a "feminist agenda"? the guy who had Kirk oogling Carol Marcus in her undies?

Theres a difference between looking to try and sell substandard content on the back of politics and actually being driven by said politics.

Someone like James Cameron who Sherdog loves, there is a film maker who is actually "woke", who genuinely seems to care about feminism and anti capitalism and made films with some genuine bite to them like Aliens.

Seems that the anti Woke crowd are very selective in what they consider woke, it only seems to be stuff of poor quality thats easier to criticize, stuff which generally only uses politics in a cynical fashion for marketing rather than actually having much substance to it.

Here's the problem.

You can make 1 or 2 really well done female led action movies. You want half of the action movies to be female led? You've over saturated the market. Because it's not believable and it gets tired and dry. It's an interesting "what if" at best.

Do it too often and you've killed the premise. Why? Because a 105 pound female gets dunked on her head in seconds. That's reality. Men are just better suited in the hero role and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

As for JJ? He answers to Kenney. And Cameron? He made Sarah Connor believable because he butched her up. She had character growth. Change. The experience of Terminator 1 had an effect on her which was believable. And even then she had her limits. She needed an Arnold to save the day. Do the heavy lifting. You could say the same with Ripley. The girls in Aliens were not overly feminine. So it definitely helped.

Do I want to see a Ripley in half of my action movies for "ma representation"? Fuck no. And when you try to push that it gets old and obvious. Writing doesn't matter at that point.

Like the rumors of making Hercules live action black? Who are we kidding here? Do I even wanna watch that crap? Regardless of writing? How ya gonna write that in? Did Zeus get cucked?

Shit is an obvious and tired joke at this point. It's obvious because before a possible black Hercules there's been a long laundry list of previous movies where we've race swapped white characters for black ones in an effort for "ma representation". So now it's just a comical joke. "Oh black Hercules was really well done you should see it!" Ya no thanks. The premise alone makes it ridiculous. And I don't want to support ridiculous.

 

[Scott Stapp]

If you're going to have an inclusive cast it'd be better if the characters weren't all sexless eunuchs.

 

[moreorless87]

Here's the problem.

You can make 1 or 2 really well done female led action movies. You want half of the action movies to be female led? You've over saturated the market. Because it's not believable and it gets tired and dry. It's an interesting "what if" at best.

Do it too often and you've killed the premise. Why? Because a 105 pound female gets dunked on her head in seconds. That's reality. Men are just better suited in the hero role and there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

As for JJ? He answers to Kenney. And Cameron? He made Sarah Connor believable because he butched her up. She had character growth. Change. The experience of Terminator 1 had an effect on her which was believable. And even then she had her limits. She needed an Arnold to save the day. Do the heavy lifting. You could say the same with Ripley. The girls in Aliens were not overly feminine. So it definitely helped.

Do I want to see a Ripley in half of my action movies for "ma representation"? Fuck no. And when you try to push that it gets old and obvious. Writing doesn't matter at that point.

Like the rumors of making Hercules live action black? Who are we kidding here? Do I even wanna watch that crap? Regardless of writing? How ya gonna write that in? Did Zeus get cucked?

Shit is an obvious and tired joke at this point. It's obvious because before a possible black Hercules there's been a long laundry list of previous movies where we've race swapped white characters for black ones in an effort for "ma representation". So now it's just a comical joke. "Oh black Hercules was really well done you should see it!" Ya no thanks. The premise alone makes it ridiculous. And I don't want to support ridiculous.

I'd say the reality is your've probably consumed very large amounts of "cultural war" content on places like Youtube which has fed into your insecurities and given you a false view that you reflect society as a whole.

Your dealing with action blockbusters which in recent years especially are HEAVILY focused on fantasy, superheroes and space wizards fighting with laser swords, to claim that women being these things is harder to suspend disbelief for than their existing at all to me is just obviously nonsense. I would point out as well that a very significant majority of action films still have white male leads to them and that many of those films are of poor quality and do not do well at the box office.

Whats happened more recently is not that Hollywood has become "more political", I would argue its actually become less political than the 80's but rather than its realised politics can be used as PR for films which have little actual political substance to them. Look at the 2016 Ghostbusters and look at Aliens, which of those films has actual political substance to it? its very obviously the latter which is the story of a womans competence and material instinct being stronger than gun ho militarism whilst dealing with the excesses of capitalist greed, its the very postergirl for a feminist action film.

Someone like Kennedy is not some arch "feminazi" focused on her message, thats James Cameron who whilst he did obviously care about mass appeal has very often gone out of his way to include progerssive politics in his films. Kennedy is a bean counter, someone used by people like Lucas and Speilberg to work out the finanical details of their film productions, probably very good at doing that judging by how long her career was. Her actions as head of Lucasfilm are really those of someone with business expereince but little artistic talent, hiring JJ Abrams(although I suspect Disney probably played as big or bigger part in that) was really just a cynical business decision, basically "come and do what you did for Star Trek" without picking up that their was already backlash against that. Likewise any politics involved with those sequel films was also cynical and lacking in any real substance, basically rattle the cages of a few cultural war bros and then look to their backlash as proof your films are "significant".

Thats actually the irony of the situation, cynical "representation" focused PR actually depends on the cultural war movement to sustain itself, you help sustain the very thing you hate even if you greatly mischaracterise what it actually is.

 

[KnightTemplar]

You think JJ Abrams is driven by a "feminist agenda"? the guy who had Kirk oogling Carol Marcus in her undies?

Theres a difference between looking to try and sell substandard content on the back of politics and actually being driven by said politics.

Someone like James Cameron who Sherdog loves, there is a film maker who is actually "woke", who genuinely seems to care about feminism and anti capitalism and made films with some genuine bite to them like Aliens.

Seems that the anti Woke crowd are very selective in what they consider woke, it only seems to be stuff of poor quality thats easier to criticize, stuff which generally only uses politics in a cynical fashion for marketing rather than actually having much substance to it.

The best part of that movie. By a considerable margin

 

[herpd807]

I'd say the reality is your've probably consumed very large amounts of "cultural war" content on places like Youtube which has fed into your insecurities and given you a false view that you reflect society as a whole.

Your dealing with action blockbusters which in recent years especially are HEAVILY focused on fantasy, superheroes and space wizards fighting with laser swords, to claim that women being these things is harder to suspend disbelief for than their existing at all to me is just obviously nonsense. I would point out as well that a very significant majority of action films still have white male leads to them and that many of those films are of poor quality and do not do well at the box office.

Whats happened more recently is not that Hollywood has become "more political", I would argue its actually become less political than the 80's but rather than its realised politics can be used as PR for films which have little actual political substance to them. Look at the 2016 Ghostbusters and look at Aliens, which of those films has actual political substance to it? its very obviously the latter which is the story of a womans competence and material instinct being stronger than gun ho militarism whilst dealing with the excesses of capitalist greed, its the very postergirl for a feminist action film.

Someone like Kennedy is not some arch "feminazi" focused on her message, thats James Cameron who whilst he did obviously care about mass appeal has very often gone out of his way to include progerssive politics in his films. Kennedy is a bean counter, someone used by people like Lucas and Speilberg to work out the finanical details of their film productions, probably very good at doing that judging by how long her career was. Her actions as head of Lucasfilm are really those of someone with business expereince but little artistic talent, hiring JJ Abrams(although I suspect Disney probably played as big or bigger part in that) was really just a cynical business decision, basically "come and do what you did for Star Trek" without picking up that their was already backlash against that. Likewise any politics involved with those sequel films was also cynical and lacking in any real substance, basically rattle the cages of a few cultural war bros and then look to their backlash as proof your films are "significant".

Thats actually the irony of the situation, cynical "representation" focused PR actually depends on the cultural war movement to sustain itself, you help sustain the very thing you hate even if you greatly mischaracterise what it actually is.

As I've explained. A super WOMAN would still get dunked on her head fighting a super MAN. That's how it's been growing up both in movies and comics. That makes sense, for the simple reason of everything we have come to realize about the potential of a female sex versus that of a male sex. So yes, even in fairy tale stories of space wizards and superheroes the hierarchy of power always fell to the male first and foremost. And while you have correctly pointed out times where great movies have twist the roles or broken the barrier...you can't over do it.

So while yes, Cameron correctly wrote and empowered strong female leads, as I've said...that's fine. Their is a certain novelty in seeing that. If I have to be fed that in every other film is where the narrative gets tired and old. A strong female protagonist gets tired. The novelty wears off and I lose interest. And why? Because at the end of the day a woman gets dunked on her head. Even a SUPER woman.

Look it's not a big mystery here as to why Hollywood is doing this gender and racial representation nonsense. It's money. At the end of the day the white male customer base is shrinking and Hollywood needs to maximize global income. So don't be surprised if in the near future suddenly every fucking Hollywood film is starring actors from India as their demographics and economy surpasses China.

But in the meantime, how about instead of being insulting towards other cultures and races by making Cleopatra black, we actually just tell stories of strong female woman from Africa's history?

How about we tone down the "women get it done" nonsense a tad because at the end of the day, they don't.

 

[moreorless87]

As I've explained. A super WOMAN would still get dunked on her head fighting a super MAN. That's how it's been growing up both in movies and comics. That makes sense, for the simple reason of everything we have come to realize about the potential of a female sex versus that of a male sex. So yes, even in fairy tale stories of space wizards and superheroes the hierarchy of power always fell to the male first and foremost. And while you have correctly pointed out times where great movies have twist the roles or broken the barrier...you can't over do it.

So while yes, Cameron correctly wrote and empowered strong female leads, as I've said...that's fine. Their is a certain novelty in seeing that. If I have to be fed that in every other film is where the narrative gets tired and old. A strong female protagonist gets tired. The novelty wears off and I lose interest. And why? Because at the end of the day a woman gets dunked on her head. Even a SUPER woman..

I mean that really says it all about your doesnt it? that you consider it harder to suspend disblief that a character with fantastical powers could "beat a man" than you do that said powers could exist at all.

 

[GtehMVP]

I thought Midnight's Edge recent video covered the MCU's fall really well.

They talk about Feige getting full control as being the eventual turning point for the MCU. He used to have checks and balances in the form of Ike Perlmutter and a Committee. Their interests, from what I understood, were in ensuring quality control and profitability, mostly the latter surely.

Clearly Feige has a lot of passion for Marvel, and was instrumental in a lot of the great things leading into Infinity War, but left on his own has been a disaster. I don't know know if it's an ESG thing, or pressures from the Activists in Disney, but the shows and movies he's greenlight in recent years have been mediocre to total dogshit.

They draw a comparison to George Lucas having total control of the prequels, but unlike Feige, at least George still had the best interest of the source material at heart. Feige seems more interested in pandering to a bunch of lunatics who can never be appeased. The results/financial losses speak for themselves.

 

[herpd807]

I mean that really says it all about your doesnt it? that you consider it harder to suspend disblief that a character with fantastical powers could "beat a man" than you do that said powers could exist at all.

It means that the sound understanding of biological reality extends even with fantastic powers.

All things being equal the hierarchy remains by virtue of the genders biological reality.

super MAN beats super WOMAN. As he would super BOY.

 

[moreorless87]

It means that the sound understanding of biological reality extends even with fantastic powers.

All things being equal the hierarchy remains by virtue of the genders biological reality.

super MAN beats super WOMAN. As he would super BOY.

The awesome power of your Y chromasome would allow you to defeat space wizards?

 

[herpd807]

The awesome power of your Y chromasome would allow you to defeat space wizards?

All things being equal otherwise? Yeah.

The whole "women get it done" novelty story line is played out. Hey one of my favorite TV shows to rewatch is Buffy. Buffy was great! Buffy was well written. But you can't make 50 percent of shows "Buffy". It's boring and played out.

The 105 pound female protagonist super hero getting it done is a novelty. You can have too much of that novelty.

 

[tobiaswins]

I thought Midnight's Edge recent video covered the MCU's fall really well.

They talk about Feige getting full control as being the eventual turning point for the MCU. He used to have checks and balances in the form of Ike Perlmutter and a Committee. Their interests, from what I understood, were in ensuring quality control and profitability, mostly the latter surely.

Clearly Feige has a lot of passion for Marvel, and was instrumental in a lot of the great things leading into Infinity War, but left on his own has been a disaster. I don't know know if it's an ESG thing, or pressures from the Activists in Disney, but the shows and movies he's greenlight in recent years have been mediocre to total dogshit.

They draw a comparison to George Lucas having total control of the prequels, but unlike Feige, at least George still had the best interest of the source material at heart. Feige seems more interested in pandering to a bunch of lunatics who can never be appeased. The results/financial losses speak for themselves.

I personally don’t put the blame on Feige, I feel this is more of a Disney problem. I just think its the result of Disney taking more and more control of the creative process. Just look at how they’ve been handling their live action remakes and their Lucas arts films, it’s all very similar. Safe bland formulaic and predictable with a heavy reliance on nostalgia bait and the MCU focusing more on setting up the next project than making a great story. I of course have no way of proving this but it has been Disneys track record as of late. Why take chances and risks when you can just copy and paste over and over?

 

[evansusmc2]

Probably the only way they can get people back in the theaters. I wouldn't go on my own accord but my wife would drag me to a Marvel movie if Chris Evans and RDJ were back. Spiderman as well. None of the other Marvel characters register with her.

How they heck they gonna bring back the dead??

 

[MLarson]

How the heck they gonna bring back the dead??

They will figure out a way.

 

[MLarson]

I want to see some solo Hulk movies not WW Hulk ones and they get the FF movie going eventually a Hulk Vs. Thing battle and also can't wait for the X-Men.

Hopefully they can get the full rights to Spiderman back.

 

[KnightTemplar]

How the heck they gonna bring back the dead??

Do you even Multiverse, bro?

 

[Morning Star]

How the heck they gonna bring back the dead??

They already have with the whole multiverse/time travel angle. Probably just that. Lazy and makes deaths lack weight, but they need RDJ to save the franchise.

 

[method115]

You are missing causality.

Why does the writing suck? The writing sucks because they were so focused on empowering a female lead that they skipped over the character development part and went straight to the end of the development arc.

They didn't want her to look weak. So...she was great at everything.

Eh I disagree here. I watch a lot of anime and they have characters that are very OP from the get go and they still find ways to write an actual good story. It's just lazy writing. Why did the first movie have to be pretty much a carbon copy of the Star wars 4? Because they are lazy and didn't want to come up with something new.

Character development doesn't just have to be Ray being weak and learning to be a better Jedi. In fact I'd even consider that partially lazy writing we've already seen that throughout the Star Wars movie franchise. Unfortunately they didn't have the talent they needed to make a good movie regardless of how they did it. They could have had Ray be weak and learn to be a stronger Jedi and it would not have fixed the issues with those movies at all.

 

[Sir Burton]

The Critical Drinker on YouTube has released some fantastic critical analyses of the Disney/Marvel downfall over the past couple off years.

Highly recommended viewing for anyone who enjoys thoughtful, critical, objective analysis of everything that is wrong with the studio and movies.

 

[herpd807]

Eh I disagree here. I watch a lot of anime and they have characters that are very OP from the get go and they still find ways to write an actual good story. It's just lazy writing. Why did the first movie have to be pretty much a carbon copy of the Star wars 4? Because they are lazy and didn't want to come up with something new.

Character development doesn't just have to be Ray being weak and learning to be a better Jedi. In fact I'd even consider that partially lazy writing we've already seen that throughout the Star Wars movie franchise. Unfortunately they didn't have the talent they needed to make a good movie regardless of how they did it. They could have had Ray be weak and learn to be a stronger Jedi and it would not have fixed the issues with those movies at all.

I mean you can disagree but the issues people have with Rey was that she was good at everything right away.

- could fly the falcon as good as Solo right away. She even repaired it in a way that was beyond his understanding
- She spoke Wookie
- She spoke Droid
- Without training she was able to use the force even though 30 minutes prior she was told the force was real.
- She got kidnapped and rescued herself
- With no training she was able to beat up a Jedi with training.

There was no point in time I ever felt interested in watching anything she did because I already knew she would be ok. She would be the reason why she was ok and she would just "figure it out" because the force is female!

Yes. The main plot points of the The Force Awakens was a retread of New Hope. That was bad. But the main character was uninteresting mary sue. A term hardly nobody knew of until this movie came out.

There was hope in that the chemistry between Finn and Poe was good and the story left on a good cliffhanger. But ignore that since Rian "tossed" that cliffhanger over a cliff. Litterally.