Anyone else not a fan of the superhero?

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Madman, Sep 6, 2021.

  1. Luis Thompson

    Luis Thompson Banned

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    I'm a superhero fan.
     
  2. Senko

    Senko Member

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    Would be interesting to know why superheroes, specifically the more classic ones (meaning the best known commercially speaking) have so many fans. I can only guess that it´s due to the fact that they can never exist in the actual world. But people would like them to be real. If not, who else could save the world from the evil?
     
  3. Set2Stun

    Set2Stun Rejection Collector Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    I think I'm pretty much done with them now. Endgame felt like everything came together and got wrapped up nicely. Not interested in any more MCU outside of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and I'm not watching any more Batman movies.

    Kind of disappointing to see the latest Spiderman earn a freaking billion dollars in 12 days. Four series of movies since 2002 and people still aren't sick of it yet? Oh well.

    I'll just add that my favorite superhero movie is Unbreakable.
     
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  4. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Same here, unless they do something that looks promising. Some of the future projects are things I would definitely be interested in, except that I don't like the way they're approaching the more recent movies. They had that classic Marvel feel up through Endgame, but that literally seems to have ended that whole approach. But now there are rumors of the Fantastic Four and the X Men entering the MCU. I'd like to see how they handle them. Plus rumors that Daredevil and Jessica Jones will be entering the MCU as well, with the original actors from the netflix shows attached.

    But it all depends on the approach. What made the Marvel movies so much better than the DC or any other studio's attempts was the feel for the material. Th characters had heart and were hendled perfectly. Not all of them, but the main ones. They've had some duds all along, like the Ant Man movies or Doctor Strange. And now they seem to be moving into criticism of the entire idea of superheroes (that's what I heard was done with the Black Widow movie, I haven't seen it) and a lot of the more recent projects are just weird as hell, like the Eternals. Nothing about the trailers captured my interest at all. They seem to be following the arc the Marvel comics have follwed, from heartfelt and likable characters/stories into activism, which seems to always come at the expense of the classic heroes.
     
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  5. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    I am Groot.
     
  6. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Nice dissertation Groot! Too bad most people will only hear "I am Groot".
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2021
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  7. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    And I want a Squirrel Girl movie.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    I'm just the opposite. I grew up in the 1950s, back in the heyday of the White Hat cowboy good guys and black hat cowboy bad guys, and the heroes wouldn't think of even giving the helpless damsel in distress so much as a peck on the cheek, let alone [___]. Superman, in those days, was the same. He stood for 'Truth, Justice, and the American Way." (A motto they have now removed from the lexicon." I think that growing up with exposure to highly moral heroes and superheroes made me a better person (or, at least, made me aspire to be a better person.)

    I'm not even remotely interested in the current crop of whiny, morally flawed superheroes.
     
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  9. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    just curious which ones you have in mind exactly?
     
  10. SapereAude

    SapereAude Contributor Contributor

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    Pretty much all of them: the new Superman, the new Batman, the new Aquaman, the new Thor, .... They're all head cases. When I was a kid, they weren't head cases, they were just ... heroic.
     
  11. Chromewriter

    Chromewriter Contributor Contributor

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    I think heroic has been replaced by realistic. You lose some symbolism and idealism for more connectivity with the source material. It's a new world out there and people seem ready to tear down idols. I really like the dark knight in that regards, everyone was ready to throw him under the bus and that seemed like a realistic and of the sentiment of the time.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2021
  12. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    kind of boring if you ask me but I guess it's not for everyone. I've seen the old Superman show, the one from the 50s--I haven't really read the comics--and the most powerful man in the world whose only weakness is an obscure metal really is a bit boring to watch if the character isn't interesting. It's a fine show, but I didn't find the character of Superman to be particularly interesting, since as you say there was no mental conflict or character-driven difficulties. It's interesting, too, as another more distantly related point, that this very stark white-hat/black-hat moral dichotomy that you refer to co-existed with film noir, one of the more cynical genres of American cinema. I wonder if there was some sort of compartmentalization going on in the national entertainment landscape at the time.
     
  13. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Not only was America a very young country at the time (less than 200 years old) but film itself was still very young and worked for the most part on a very simplistic moral code, except for the work of certain more complex directors (mostly expat Europeans*). The European countries were all far older and had had to face thier own internal corruption many times when film came along. But it's largely in the aftermath of wars that countries had to re-assess their stance on morality. I'm sure the Civil War and even the American Revolution long before it brought out complex and cynical ideas about morality, but cinema didn't exist at those times. Film Noir began late into WW2, and because it was extremely low-budget B-movie fare it wasn't closely scrutinized and the directors were able to explore ideas of moral complexity and ambiguity that weren't common in the more mainstream (you might say Disney-fied) environment of the big Hollywood studios. The next big blow to any idea that morality is simple and constant was Vietnam.

    The first superhero stories (Superman, Batman, Captain America) were born in the early stages of war propaganda, so they pushed that simplistic idea that it's easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Stories created late in a war or in the aftermath often reveal cynicism and intense moral ambiguity. Marvel was born in the 60's, around the height of Vietnam-era protests and scandals, when the people had lost faith that their government was unambiguously good.

    I like the way the MCU movies use the character of Captain America specifically to reflect on that change—in his first few appearances he's still a product of simplistic early WW2 propaganda. There's a strong rivalry between him and the cynical Tony Stark, who was created during the Vietnam era specifically as a reflection of changing attitudes toward millionaire industrialists and the war. As I mentioned earlier on this thread (maybe it was on my blog), Stan Lee wanted to give the young generation a superhero who began life as what they hated—a wealthy war monger (a war pig as the hippies would call him) who had to undergo a severe change of heart in order to become a hero. His heart is constantly under threat from the shrapnel of one of his own missiles—he had to invent the heart of the Iron Man suit in order to keep himself alive. Then he added all the armor and weaponry and decided to use it now in service to the actual good, completely against what he used to be.

    In the MCU movies Captain America gradually grew from wide-eyed, unambiguous morality (when he wore the Stars and Stripes so boldly) to a much more cynical and battered idea that the government itself isn't always the good guys, and that, as Alekzandr Solzenitzyn told us in his book The Gulag Archipelago (after being a prisoner in a number of Soviet Gulags): The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” After he learned these lessons, Captain America started wearing the black costume and had to fight against the now corrupt Shield organization (which represented American government—or more specifically intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA).

    As for all the DC characters (Superman, Batman, Aquaman... ) the DC studios screwed up a lot when rushing to crank out movies to compete with the MCU. They were trying to capitalize on the incredible success of Deadpool, where the lead character was a cynical anti-hero, and they just did everything wrong that was possible (largely too much interference from nervous studio heads), where Marvel Studios managed to do a lot right. DC turned all their former heroes into actual anti-heroes, something the MCU never did (the Marvel heroes just had to keep checking to make sure they weren't fighting for the wrong reasons or the wrong causes). The only DC movie I really liked was the first Wonder Woman. Like Captain America, she was pretty morally unambiguous, but, also like him, she had to re-learn a lot on discovering the modern world and the fact that you can no longer clearly tell the good guys from the bad guys.

    * Interestingly, many of the Film Noir directors were Germans who had fled to escape the Nazis. Their strong use of shadow and stark lighting and their cynicism largely came from their former involvement in German Expressionist cinema.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2021
  14. Count_Spatula

    Count_Spatula New Member

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    I like some superhero movies, but the genre was never my cup of tea. My dad, however, loved superhero movies and comics, especially DC.

    I kinda lost interest after Endgame. The only superhero movies I would still consider watching are anything relating to Guardians or the Galaxy or Spider-Man.

    I think my issue with the superhero genre is that the settings usually are kitchen-sinky. You have superheroes, but there is also mad science, aliens, magic, etc. It doesn't seem like the worlds have real limitations. Also, they, DC in particular, seem to retcon their stuff every so often.
     
  15. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    That's actually one of my favorite features of it.
     
  16. KiraAnn

    KiraAnn Senior Member

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    The movies are entertaining bits of fluff but only that. As for reading comic books - I gave those up when I started high school.
     
  17. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    The only 'super' hero I enjoy consistently is Batman, though I have chosen to not watch the
    newer movies with Ben Afflec as the titular character. However I tend to favor the animated
    movies (exception being the lego based ones), with the 2 part one where Batman comes out
    of retirement and is voiced by Michael Ironside. :)
    Simply a mortal man with no extra powers outside of being rich, and also the only one too
    feel the need to know the weakness of the Justice League members in case there is a time
    that he would have to take them out for turning against the League. Which gives him a more
    interesting dynamic, than just his standard tragic past and his choice to pursue vigilantism.

    So for the most part, I suppose I am not a fan of the extraordinary heroes with powers that are
    akin to magic and basically invincible to some degree. Which makes the stakes mean virtually
    nothing 99.9% of the time. Superman is the proverbial boyscout, with the random weakness
    of a rare mineral and magic?! WTF, that makes little sense on the second one, considering the
    universe is fairly placed in a realistic manor where magic isn't really a thing.

    IDK, in short one could say I prefer the ordinary that can do extraordinary, without the extra
    special powers that make other heroes 'Super' in the same vein. :)
     
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