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| comicbookmovie.com |
With the smashing success of Doctor Strange, Marvel Studios has had its fourteenth consecutive film to win its opening weekend and has once again proven that they can put anything on the screen and people will watch it. Despite some criticisms from reviewers (such as myself) about the formulaic plot and some other shortcomings, people went to the theater and said with a resounding voice that they didn’t care. Marvel definitely has a winning formula, but is that really a good thing? How long can they possibly keep this up before it all goes to crap? Well, let’s explore that, shall we?
I do want to clarify that I think there's nothing wrong with this (in theory, at least), but when a studio seems insistent on not evolving or doing anything different with their story, you have to wonder if it’s just to make things easier for them or because they simply think the audience is too stupid to handle anything more complicated than a rehash of the first Iron Man, again. Plus you have to add the fact that we see several of these movies a year by now and the tricks are just starting to get really, really old. And look, I get that there are formulas for every genre and even just some franchises, James Bond probably being the chief comparison to make. But let me ask you something: how many James Bond movies do we get a year, and how many Marvel films do we get a year? Given how much Marvel loves to completely dominate the media it's impossible to even let these movies rest and to give the audience time to forget about them. Marvel is always there, like some really nagging Facebook friend who has to comment on everything, and I think that in time people are going to catch on and stop buying into it. And as someone who is a nerd and loves these characters I do think that's a huge problem.
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| marvel.wikia.com
I can probably name all of these characters, y'all. That's how deep the nerdiness goes.
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Another major problem with the formula is that it creates a universe of films without any real stakes. This excellent article about Civil War outlines how, despite the Russo Brothers’ attempt to market it as a “dark, edgy” movie, Civil War is basically the emotional and storytelling equivalent of a TV episode (at best). The characters come in, their world falls apart and they fight, but the pieces are basically put back together in time for the next adventure. Now, if this was an episode of The Brady Bunch that would be okay, but this is a multi-million dollar franchise that is being sold to us as one interconnected universe that tells real stories and it’s starting to get really obvious that the studio doesn’t care about that at all. Remember how "emotional" Age of Ultron was supposed to be, and what it actually turned out to be? Why do they feel the need to mislead the audience like that if people are pretty much guaranteed to go and see the movie anyway?
The formula’s success, while great in a financial sense, has also led to what seems to be laziness in Marvel’s storytelling. I mentioned in my review for Doctor Strange that if there was any character that should have had a weirder, off the beaten path origin, it was Doctor Strange. What we got, though, was Iron Man with magic. There is no clearer evidence of this than in the villains we get, which are underwritten at best and downright pathetic at worst. While Marvel's stable of villains isn't as vast and impressive as DC's, they do have several notable villains who could have been done really well had the filmmakers not been forced to adhere to the formula as much. The Red Skull is a wonderful villain and a great foil for Captain America, but do you even remember that he was in a Captain America movie? And if so, what was he trying to accomplish? You don't remember, do you? Or take one of the most egregious examples, Ronan the Accuser from Guardians of the Galaxy. In the comics Ronan is a very rich and complex character, sometimes a hero and sometimes a villain but always loyal to his people and his moral code. In the movie? Hell, I don't remember and I saw the thing three times! If they're going to just treat the villains as disposable and useless, why not just have the heroes go up against a janitor or something?
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| cnn.com
Pictured here: A more threatening villain than Whiplash.
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My last big complaint in regards to Marvel is that the formula itself just isn't going to be stable as the universe continues to expand. Sure, you can use it for all your origin films, but we've seen what happens when you try to apply it to the big team-up films. Age of Ultron, like it or not, was a narrative mess, with characters we've already seen developed getting even more development at the cost of losing a possibly intriguing villain and ignoring the three new Avengers that were introduced, along with Joss Whedon having to make up for not developing Hawkeye enough in the first one. Oh, and if limited screentime for the Avengers and Ultron wasn't enough, Whedon also had to take time to set up not one but four other movies. Imagine what Infinity War is going to be like, folks. That film has to bring the Avengers back together, introduce them to the Guardians of the Galaxy, bring in the characters from the fringe movies like Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange, have the audience get caught up on all their adventures and have them interact with one another, reintroduce and reexplain the threat of the Infinity Stones, set up Thanos and Thanos' story arc, have them all fight each other, and somehow have to balance each character to make sure they feel like they belong there and provide them with their own individual moments, and God knows what else Kevin Feige will demand that the Russos include. I certainly don't envy those screenwriters, guys.
Now I'm gonna bring everybody back together here and share my biggest concern, which goes far beyond Marvel to the entire Hollywood system. I am well aware that not every superhero movie needs to be The Dark Knight, and that there is a place for light popcorn fun. And Marvel, to their credit, does a great job at that. I only really dislike Iron Man 2, but the rest I still like watching no matter how generic or boring they are. There's always some good bits of humor and cool action, and the fact that they are so consistently enjoyable is commendable. However, the problem with this is that every other studio looks at this success and says "I have to get me a piece of that," and then proceed to try and set up their own universes or adapt the formula to their own properties. And if the studios are just going to be making bland, unexciting and formulaic blockbusters to compete with Marvel's, what's to stop another disastrous summer like this one from happening again? Blockbusters not making the studios money is not good for anybody, because as shocking as it might be for you guys to hear me say this, we need blockbusters in order for cinema to survive.
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| comingsoon.net
Yes, even this one. *sighs*
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Let me explain. This year, Warner Brothers released two huge superhero movies, Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad. Both movies made a lot of money, and that money is most definitely going towards the next installments of their own cinematic universe or other franchises, but it’s also going towards their higher-risk and less reward movies like Sully. While that film ultimately made a profit, it was a risk for the studios that they were only willing to make because they had to money to pay for it and then cushion against any loss it took. If blockbusters become boring and we have another summer like we had this year, people will stop going to see the blockbusters and putting money in the studio’s pockets, meaning that my movies (the dramatic, challenging and risky ones) will stop getting funded. And that absolutely, under no circumstances, is a good thing guys. Blockbusters are fun and exciting, but the Oscar bait movies and the dramas that you think look boring are the lifeblood of cinema. They’re the movies that inspire people and make them think about their lives as well as introduce audiences to fascinating stories and characters they just don't see in everyday life, whether it's to challenge them or uplift them (or depress them, in some instances). Basically, if we're going to get movies like The Birth of a Nation, Moonlight, and Hacksaw Ridge, we need movies like The Avengers, Batman v Superman, and Transformers to make loads of cash. An interesting paradox, but something I've learned over the past year or so when I decided to stop railing against how lame Hollywood is and examine it from a business perspective. I don't like this reality, but reality doesn't cater to us, now does it?
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| cnn.com
*cries*
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So, how do we fix the blockbusters? Well, that's a tough question. Marvel has already set themselves up presumably for the rest of our lives (Star Wars certainly has), and until they stop making money the trend will continue to go on, unfixed. I have no doubt that one day people will stop seeing these movies and Hollywood will turn it's focus to something else, but that's part of the problem. We need to be encouraging Hollywood to take more chances even when something else is really popular at the moment. How many of you saw Edge of Tomorrow, a truly unique action film, in theaters? Very few of you? Well, that sent a message to Hollywood saying that it shouldn't make those kinds of films anymore because they don't make money.
Every year I hear people complaining about the Oscars and how they're just catering to white people and not any minorities, and I have to ask them how many movies starring minorities they actually went out and saw in theaters. You know the response I often get? I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. Anyways, the same logic applies to blockbusters, particularly when it comes to diversity. Why is the massive success of Furious 7 so important? Because it's a film starring a primarily minority cast that grossed a billion dollars in seventeen days, that's why. Why does the failure of Ghostbusters hurt so badly? Because it tells Hollywood that women can't sell movies, so they will be less likely to create those types of films in the future. Money talks in Hollywood, and if we don't use it to support originality then Hollywood will just continue to ignore it and continue their march into mediocrity.
So remember folks, when you see something you might think is interesting coming up, go out and support it. Vote with your dollar and tell the studios you want more unique and fun movies to go along with the standard popcorn fare that studios like Marvel provide. You're not just giving the studios money to feed their workers, you're saving cinema itself. And I think that's pretty cool, guys.
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| margethelarge.com
They're unlikely heroes, sure, but they're all we've got!
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Oh, and make sure to actually vote tomorrow, folks. It's your civic duty. Get informed and get out there. This election is too important to be sitting on your butts reading random blog posts. MURICA
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