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Post by karan on Apr 22, 2016 2:22:56 GMT -8
Super excited for this one. Though probably won't be able to watch it till two weeks.
Early reviews are very good. 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Post by riverpanthera on Apr 22, 2016 3:49:43 GMT -8
Im pretty excited about this too as its the same guys who did Captain America Winter Soldier which was one of the best marvel movies for me . br] the reviews definitely are promising though after bvs im not trusting critics ever again (not that I ever totally did but that was the final straw) as its clear I can disagree with them massively on certain things. Although I have mostly liked/loved all the marvel movies so its unlikely that will change unless something was drastically wrong here. The only real problem for me could be repetitiveness..im getting a little tired of these movies...I didn't enjoy Ant-Man all that much.
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Post by abhijacko on Apr 22, 2016 17:50:38 GMT -8
Super excited for this one. Though probably won't be able to watch it till two weeks. Early reviews are very good. 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Super excited too! The trailers look amazing! Have my tickets booked for opening weekend's saturday
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Post by abhijacko on Apr 22, 2016 17:51:15 GMT -8
Actually really eager to see how Spiderman is handled in this assortment of superheros
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Post by riverpanthera on Apr 23, 2016 1:45:40 GMT -8
^Yes I"m looking forward to that a lot too, though funnily enough when it was first announced, I actually groaned thinking oh no not another spiderman, but I really like the actor they've picked (Tom Holland)- he was brilliant in The Impossible. Plus it's good they've actually gone for a high school age appropriate actor. And hopefully they won't retell the whole origin story since they are introducing him here.
Spiderman at one time was my favourite superhero and he's probably still no. 3 on my list.
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Post by abhijacko on Apr 25, 2016 6:00:30 GMT -8
Spiderman, Batman, Wolverine have always topped the list for me (based only on movies ofcourse). Spiderman was also the only animated superhero series I ever watched as a kid, unless we consider the Mask as a superhero (he kinda was )
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Post by riverpanthera on May 1, 2016 18:13:14 GMT -8
So just for the sake of it and cause I"m bored adn trying to avoid studying, whose team are you guys on?
Initially I would have said Team Cap for sure but I"m actually kinda leaning towards Team Iron Man now after seeing all the trailers etc. Though movie could change that.
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Post by abhijacko on May 2, 2016 5:51:13 GMT -8
I don't really have strong feelings for either side actually. Both their points make sense
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Post by karan on May 3, 2016 8:36:59 GMT -8
Watched it today. Had high hopes and I wasn't at all disappointed. It's a very good and well directed film that's good in all departments.
Good story, action and a strong emotional core (which wasn't as prevalent in previous Marvel films). The trademark Marvel humor was blended well into the film without detracting from the serious tone. The conflict, especially between Iron Man and Captain America, was done really well. Unlike Batman v Superman there's proper reasons for the superheroes to fight and there's no holding back.
I can't point out any weaknesses or sore points except for the slightly abrupt and anti climatic ending. The ending was a bit abrupt since the film was paced really well with absolutely no dull moments so it didn't feel like it'd been close to 2 and a half hours.
Overall, I think the film combines the best of the Captain America films and the Avengers and it's pretty much a perfect commercial film.
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Post by abhijacko on May 3, 2016 10:19:00 GMT -8
Really looking forward to seeing it on Saturday
It sounds like Captain America is the second best (and arguably, the best) superhero movie trilogy/series ever. My expectations are sky high
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Post by karan on May 3, 2016 10:28:47 GMT -8
Nolan's batman trilogy holds the distinction of the best superhero series (and quite easily IMO).
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Post by abhijacko on May 3, 2016 10:54:23 GMT -8
^^ Offlate, I have seen a lot of people having major gripes with TDKR. I never understood them. I always thought of TDKR as the PERFECT ending to an amazing trilogy. Almost on par with TDK
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Post by karan on May 3, 2016 11:12:07 GMT -8
I've noticed that too and among my friends. I don't understand as well. I love it. Only wish batman was the one to finish off bane. I still have Bane's dialogues ringing in my head. Such an awesome villain.
But Even if they have a few gripes, it's still a good film. Some people were saying stuff like BvS is still better than TDKR...wth.
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Post by abhijacko on May 3, 2016 11:13:57 GMT -8
I've noticed that too and among my friends. I don't understand as well. I love it. Only wish batman was the one to finish off bane. I still have Bane's dialogues ringing in my head. Such an awesome villain. But Even if they have a few gripes, it's still a good film. Some people were saying stuff like BvS is still better than TDKR...wth.THAT I absolutely do not understand .. I clearly saw a different movie than them
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Post by riverpanthera on May 4, 2016 23:14:52 GMT -8
I'm actually one of those who said BvS is better than TDKR after seeing it. Though for me this is not in anyway an insult to TDKR cause I loved BvS and I still love TDKR, but both movies have very similar problems personally, however in the end BvS had something just a little more interesting for me, maybe it's the comicbooky feel of it or that it has a great superman and wonder woman, not really sure. Though there are aspects of TDKR that I prefer to BvS- like Bane is clearly a better villain than Lex. Storywise, neither movies are really that interesting or unique but it's the execution and the emotional connection that makes me love them.
I just rewatched TDKR a few days ago in my continued rewatch of the Nolan series and my opinion hasn't changed. Both are probably 8/10 movies rating wise (although on a pure emotional level on how much I just love the movies, I would actually give them 10/10, but if I was being objective its really a 8), but BvS just edges it I think.
However, I do totally agree that Nolan's series overall is the best superhero series and I don't see anything beating that ever. Personally Civil War won't even come close cause even if it's better than TDKR, the first two movies in that series both rank well below TDK and BB for me.
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Post by riverpanthera on May 6, 2016 3:49:47 GMT -8
Saw the movie, I really enjoyed it too..probably the best out of the three cap movies (though this was more Avengers 2.5), and also better than age of ultron. Not sure if better than first avengers though. It was very entertaining and also had some good emotional moments...however as with most marvel movies, I did find it had too many silly one liners that often ruin the tension.. Winter Soldier was better in that respect. The action was mostly great.. but here too there were a few issues.. some stuff seemed clearly fake and cgi or very sped up..like it was on fastforward. Also this will sound strange but I almost thought there was too much action in the movie..felt like 70-80% of the movie was just action scenes, however in faiirness they were a lot of fun so I didn't mind it exactly for this watch but it does mean im probably not going to enjoy as much on rewatch. Black Panther made an impression. Spiderman was good too..though I did think they overdid the talking a bit. Ill reserve final judgement till I see his own movie. Loved both Cap and Iron Man in this. RDJ and Chris Evans were perfect. I'm unsure of rating right now..either 8 or 9/10. And this is not a flaw of movie.but they revealed wayyy too much in trsilers..should have held a bit back.
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Post by karan on May 6, 2016 4:25:30 GMT -8
Avengers was lighter and funnier while this was more serious and had more depth in its story IMO. I think they held back on the one liners with this film. I personally found they helped in making sure certain scenes didn't turn overly dramatic. It's a matter of perspective I guess. Forgot to mention but I can't explicitly choose a side. I'd say I'm on team Iron Man since he had better reasons for his stance and was thinking about the team while Captain America seemed to be prioritising his friendship with Bucky over anything else. I found that very un-Captain America like since he's supposed to be a man of a lot of integrity, willing to sacrifice himself for his country etc and basically the most morally upright of all the avengers. I think the film shows he isn't as perfect in character as we once thought.
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Post by flickaholic on May 6, 2016 5:09:58 GMT -8
Watched it last night...Really enjoyed it.
Good story, lot of characters get their space, Gr8 action...
I would give it 8.5/10
Beats BVS with ease.
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Post by riverpanthera on May 6, 2016 14:12:08 GMT -8
Avengers was lighter and funnier while this was more serious and had more depth in its story IMO. I think they held back on the one liners with this film. I personally found they helped in making sure certain scenes didn't turn overly dramatic. It's a matter of perspective I guess. Forgot to mention but I can't explicitly choose a side. I'd say I'm on team Iron Man since he had better reasons for his stance and was thinking about the team while Captain America seemed to be prioritising his friendship with Bucky over anything else. I found that very un-Captain America like since he's supposed to be a man of a lot of integrity, willing to sacrifice himself for his country etc and basically the most morally upright of all the avengers. I think the film shows he isn't as perfect in character as we once thought. I agree with your spoiler comment, I did like that they humanised him a lot more. Yes Avengers was probably lighter/funnier, but perhaps the reason I may find it better is cause it was the first teamup, so it felt more fresh. I'm starting to find Marvel a bit repetitive now so many movies down the line. Civil War did have some 'new' things though. I'm actually undecided at the moment on whether or not it is better than Avengers, it will all depend on how well it holds up on rewatch. However, Civil War didn't have as much depth I was hoping, there was still too much action, less story. But they did develop the characters well.
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Post by abhijacko on May 9, 2016 9:12:31 GMT -8
Captain America: Civil War - 9.5/10Absolutely LOVED it. A near-flawless superhero blockbuster with as much action as heart. MARVEL delivers yet again and it is really amazing how consistently good they are. The only minor gripe was slight pacing issues in the first half of the movie (pre-airport scene). The motives of the leads involved in the Civil War were very well defined and multi-layered. Both Caps and Iron Man had reasons on a larger scale as well as on a personal level. It was brilliantly done. And I absolutely loved how flawed and at-the-edge Iron Man was. Which is why it made total sense, when He just lost it when he saw his parents being murdered by Bucky. All the crap from the previous movies, his arguments/fights with his "friends" just built up until he snapped. Brilliantly done! The action was absolutely spectacular. I was a bit skeptical on how they would handle so many characters at the same time, but it was done so well. I could re-watch the movie just for that sequence Keeping this short: Spiderman and Black Panther were fantastic. Really looking forward to their movies. And Ant-Man was simply fantastic !!
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Post by ujjwala on May 9, 2016 10:27:55 GMT -8
Saw Captain America: Civil WarLike many have said it was more like Avenger Part 2.5 and that made sense cause after Avengers if something major happened they just can't be absent from each others lives. It was awesome, brilliant is the word. Loved it. It seemed to perfectly balance the dark and light shades of the film. I love the Marvel one-liners, I enjoy them. I love Steve Roggers and he is Awesome as always, Tony Stark is Brilliant as always. New entrants to the team - Black Panther, Spiderman (perhaps the first correctly cast Spiderman), ANTman, everyone was great. I know a film on Black Panther and Spiderman are coming next year and Antman we have already seen. However Vision though came into being in Ultron and we saw how he come to life, this was his his second appearance and I still don't know him much, his full strength and powers and since there is no movie dedicated to him I wonder when we will. I got to know Scarlet Witch better and while Black Widow and Hawkeye do not have films for themselves we know them well too. I just some in his next appearance I get to know him more. My Kodak Moment in the film was seeing Spiderman with Cap's Shield, just like Vision holding Thor's hammer was an awesome moment. And I absolutely loved how flawed and at-the-edge Iron Man was. Which is why it made total sense, when He just lost it when he saw his parents being murdered by Bucky. All the crap from the previous movies, his arguments/fights with his "friends" just built up until he snapped. Brilliantly done! Totally agree, just loved how it played out. I'd say I'm on team Iron Man since he had better reasons for his stance and was thinking about the team while Captain America seemed to be prioritising his friendship with Bucky over anything else. I found that very un-Captain America like since he's supposed to be a man of a lot of integrity, willing to sacrifice himself for his country etc and basically the most morally upright of all the avengers. I think the film shows he isn't as perfect in character as we once thought. I am on Captain America's side though I completely see Iron Man's side too and understand his choice. I do not think Cap was going all against the Sokovia Accords just over Bucky. He was against loosing the power to choose when and where to act, while Avengers are not perfect neither are the ones who now Iron Man will be taking orders from, people will agenda. People who now could sent the Avengers after anybody and they can't object. These people flashed Bucky pictures and did not even think it was important to verify if he did it. He went all out against Ironman and Co, in a way to tell them that like Bucky who was not responsible and yet they were shooting orders for him, it could be another innocent man next time. Atleast that is how I saw it.
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Post by flickaholic on May 9, 2016 15:45:15 GMT -8
I am a huge fan of Tony Stark/ Iron Man and I am on his side no matter the logic .. Add Black Panther, Spidey and it tilts the balance for me even more... Everyone keeps talking about Spidey but I could not believe how wonderfully done were the black panther portions.. His movements were killer... Plus the better agent (Black widow) is part of Tony's team. Lets see Caps team - Steve Rogers/ Captain America - Like him but not over Tony Bucky / Winter Soldier - Neutral.. Not too impressed by him or interested in him. Falcon - He is an ok side kick and that is that. Wanda / Scarlet witch - She is powerful but I am not that interested in her character and presentation... Plus she could not influence Tony in AOU Hawkeye - Don't like his character at all... He wasted time here and AOU.. Could easily get rid of him.. He is there only to add shield agents and non superpower folks to the Avengers list. Ant Man - he is my best character from Team Cap... Easily like him over Steve rogers... His scenes here are fantastic. {Spoiler}Wanda is the most powerful of Caps team but I am not sure how she is more powerful than Vision (as is shown in the movie). Not sure she is powerful enough to control an infinity gem.. The only explanation is that Vision is still discovering his powers and still not 100% {Spoiler}The whole angle of Bucky and Zemo are extra dimensions to the actual topic of Civil war... In that Captain is not wrong in his position.. But he sure goes way out of the way in this movie especially to protect Bucky..
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Post by riverpanthera on May 11, 2016 0:39:22 GMT -8
^Glad to meet someone else who isn't a fan of Bucky, I really don't get the appeal of that character. Everyone seems to rave about him online, but I probably like all of the other characters more than him. Not that I hate him, but just don't find him all that interesting and the actor is average at best. However, I like Steve over Tony as a character, but RDJ is a much better actor than Chris Evans (though he's still very good particularly in this movie) so that sometimes wins you over. I would say I agree with Captain America's point of view in the movie more and Iron Man was definitely wrong at the end especially with the trying to kill Bucky even though he knew Bucky was mind controlled when he killed tony's parents but at the same time, I feel like I felt more for Tony than I did for Bucky & Steve but that is where it may come down a bit more to the acting. My favourite of the Avengers (movies only) though is definitely Thor, so I did miss him here though I understand that they can't have everyone. But I feel like his character often seems to be a bit mistreated even in Age of ulton I thought they could have done so much more with him. I do hope we see more in future. Though now with more characters in the mix, I'm not so sure. Although I will possibly end up liking Black Panther more and even Spidey by the end of the series, so not complaining exactly. Mainly I just wish they would stop focusing so much on Hawk-eye and Black Widow and give Thor a better role.
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Post by ujjwala on May 11, 2016 3:44:34 GMT -8
^ But then Thor has a trilogy all to himself but Black Widow and Hawk-Eye do not, so I think they do justice to these characters after all they are heroes too with dedicated comic books as them as central characters as well.
I am not a Bucky fan either but I love Cap so may be I have a soft spot for people he cares about too. Plus I have read that Bucky is what Robin is to Batman, he was a kid-sidekick to Cap in the Comics, though not sure how with a Nazi war he would fit in. I guess the actor is trying his best to show his mind has been altered and he is mostly emotionless, I think he does a decent job to seem like a controlled Robot with a straight face, there isn't much to emote really.
The character they do not seem to do justice just yet is Vision who may be the most powerful going by the powers I saw in Civil War like - the Infinity stone and Phasing in capabilities. Is he like the Martian from DC?
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Post by abhijacko on May 11, 2016 7:13:21 GMT -8
Really interesting discussion going on here - I definitely have to jump in. All of these thoughts are obviously based on the movies only MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Please avoid if you haven't watched the moviesAbout Captain America vs Iron ManIt is hard to pick one between Captain America and Iron Man. Being an engineer myself, Iron Man is pretty much the epitome of what the ultimate Engineer would be. He has unlimited resources, builds the coolest sh!t out there and also 'gets the girls'. And it helps that he is played by RDJ who is absolutely brilliant in this role. But Capt is equally admirable because he is the ultimate Good guy and values loyalty over anything else. He remembers what Bucky did for him when he was a weakling and also when they were on the battlefield together. They are brothers in arms and in life. Chris Evans is great too - he brings that sincerity to the role which is perfect for this character. The best part of this series of movies is the character development - their strongest suit is also their biggest weakness. Iron Man's skills have caused a lot of damage (Ultron!) and Cap's loyalty to Bucky got him carried away so much that he was willing to "kill/dismantle" Iron Man (that final battle of IM vs Cap/Bucky was heart wrenching). And it is very interesting to see an order-following-soldier, Captain America being against registration because he has lost faith in the system (Hydra infiltrating govt/Shield/etc). And also seeing a rebel-by-nature Tony Stark (not sharing his tech with the govt) willing to put his faith in the government because he can no longer ignore the collateral damage that is being caused by his group. Keeping all this in mind, I think I would still side with Captain America a bit more because honestly, Donald Trump is soon going to be the US President and I am trying to imagine him having control over the Avengers. All I see is mayhem First order: Avengers Assemble, and build that Wall
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Post by abhijacko on May 11, 2016 7:23:20 GMT -8
About the side charactersI kind of like how they spend some time on Black Widow and Hawkeye in the movies. Hawkeye seems to provide a 3rd person, humanizing perspective on this superhuman business. He is almost like a part of the audience and I love how he he offers self deprecating humor about having just a bow and arrow. And it is fun to see Black Widow kicking butt. I want to see more of Hulk. Ruffalo is just awesome in that role. Thor's backstory is very interesting too. Apparently they will both be seen in Thor 3. Looking forward to that. I find Ant-Man to be quite awesome. Main reason is that its played by Paul Rudd and that guy has a very charming screen presence. Don't really have strong feelings for Wanda/Falcon/WarMachine. Good side characters. ujjwala: I think they are setting up Vision for Avengers 3 since it is called "Infinity Wars". I am sure he is going to play a major role in those movies since he has an "Infinity" gem. And I am really looking forward to seeing more of him.
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Post by flickaholic on May 11, 2016 9:13:23 GMT -8
Genius...Playboy..Billionaire...Philanthropist.....This is exactly what I hope I could be.
I Like cap too...The ultimate good guy..Well mannered...Enhanced physical attribures.. But if I have to chose I would rather be in Tony's shoes..
Like Tony said..Cap is the Boss but I just design everything, Pay for everything and make everything look cool.
Side wish...I so damn want that Iron man suit..Nothing better than Personal flying machine and AI (Jarvis).
On a side note...Hulk is my second fav..Ant man comes next...More so the original Ant man...
If I have to chose some Asgardian...it has to be Loki over Thor.
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Post by ujjwala on May 11, 2016 18:03:04 GMT -8
And it is very interesting to see an order-following-soldier, Captain America being against registration because he has lost faith in the system (Hydra infiltrating govt/Shield/etc). And also seeing a rebel-by-nature Tony Stark (not sharing his tech with the govt) willing to put his faith in the government because he can no longer ignore the collateral damage that is being caused by his group. Exactly, I had not seen any promos do I had no idea what the dispute was all about but the post gave it away that there was some dispute / difference of opinion in the Avengers Team. It was amazing to see the choices they made and the reasons behind them. ujjwala : I think they are setting up Vision for Avengers 3 since it is called "Infinity Wars". I am sure he is going to play a major role in those movies since he has an "Infinity" gem. And I am really looking forward to seeing more of him. I hope so.
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Post by karan on May 12, 2016 9:17:55 GMT -8
I have to say, I liked that the conflict in this film was internal and thematic and that the fighting was between proper superheros and villain characters. Prefer that to the overdone template of VFX created aliens or giant monsters coming in and wrecking havoc and a superhero or superheroes coming together to defeat them.
I also found Ant Man to be awesome (Paul Rudd's a very good actor). The film could have become congested or lost track with such a number of characters but the inclusion of Ant Man, Spider Man and Black Panther just added to the awesome scenes and fun.
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Post by ujjwala on May 13, 2016 9:16:25 GMT -8
How Marvel films like Captain America: Civil War became the world's biggest TV show With all TV's strengths and weaknesses. Updated by Todd VanDerWerff on May 12, 2016, 8:00 p.m. ET @tvoti source:http://www.vox.com/2016/5/12/11654248/captain-america-civil-war-batman-v-superman-marvel-tv
Viewed in complete isolation, the plot of Captain America: Civil War makes little to no sense.
The movie's three acts — which roughly boil down to "Cap learns of the Sokovia Accords and refuses to sign them," "Cap and Tony square off over Bucky," and "Tony fights Cap and Bucky over other tragic events" — keep shifting the characters' goals in a way that seems designed to make you forget what was happening in the previous act. It's a kind of cinematic sleight of hand.
In fact, I'm not entirely sure why the movie believes Captain America has a justifiable argument against the government's proposed oversight of superheroes. As presented in Civil War, his view seems to be, "Powerful individuals should have no oversight, and because I love my friend Bucky, he should not be subject to the rule of law, even though he killed a bunch of people. (Also, we should get to high-five.)"
Iron Man's opposing argument — that superheroes have been responsible for too much inadvertent death and, as such, should be subject to government regulations — is far more sensibly laid out, at least within Civil War's two-hour, 27-minute running time.
But this is where things get tricky. In short, judging Captain America's anti-regulation argument based only on what we see in Captain America: Civil War isn't fair to Cap, because Civil War isn't designed to be viewed in isolation.
When you think about where the character has been in earlier Marvel films — and especially when you consider the fact that he spent his last solo movie, The Winter Soldier, battling Hydra agents who had infiltrated the US government at all levels — his leeriness about being subject to oversight makes a lot more sense.
Maybe you can see what I'm getting at here: The Marvel movies are the world's most expensive TV show.
I'm far from the first person to advance the argument that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is like TV. Heck, I've made this argument many times in the past myself. But something about Civil War — especially as compared with the much clunkier X-Men: Apocalypse and Batman v Superman — made me realize that Marvel is better at making big-screen TV than just about anybody else.
Once you start to think about the MCU as a TV show, a lot of the common criticisms people tend to level at it take on a new context. For instance, you don't have to look far to find complaints that Marvel's films are formulaic, or lack the visual spark of other blockbusters, or shoehorn in story elements that don't exactly fit but are necessary to set up future films. But all these characteristics are fairly typical on television, where a director's influence is much lower than that of the showrunner.
In the case of Marvel's films, the showrunner is probably producer Kevin Feige, though he's hired others to take on the sorts of supervisory roles a co-executive producer might hold on a TV series. For instance, Joss Whedon — a great TV showrunner himself — oversaw much of Marvel's so-called "Phase Two," while Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have written many of the company's recent releases. (For more on how Fiege, Markus, and McFeely collaborate, read this piece by Vox contributor Peter Suderman on Marvel's approach to connecting all of its films.)
But Feige is essentially the visionary behind Marvel's entire slate. And from his perspective, many of the complaints occasionally lobbed at Marvel's films become strengths of the MCU as a whole. The idea that Marvel's films are less artistic expressions and more pieces of corporate product — though I would push back against that criticism — makes less sense if you view the MCU as one big TV series.
After all, when you tune in to an episode of your favorite show, even if it's a stylistically adventurous one like Rectify or Mad Men, you have a very broad sense of what you're going to get. And that's even more true for a show like NCIS or even Game of Thrones, which has more or less turned "expect the unexpected" into its unofficial tagline but tends to employ a fairly narrow set of filmmaking styles. On television, a consistency of vision across multiple installments is viewed as a strength. So why is it a negative in film?
Or maybe I'm more likely to feel this way because I still primarily write about television. Thinking of a story as emanating from one all-controlling producer isn't that unusual to TV critics (or, I guess, to a movie critic from the 1940s, when producers held much more power), but it's a very different approach for film critics, who are used to thinking of the director as the most important person working on any film.
Yes, I suppose if we imagined that Marvel actually were a TV show, it would simply be a pretty good one, rather than a standout.
It's easy to picture these films breaking down into something Game of Thrones–esque, with every one of them checking in on various characters and their individual side stories, before bringing everyone together in the finale (or, rather, an Avengers film). (This would, I suppose, make the Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel's equivalent of Game of Thrones' Daenerys Targaryen — both separated by long distances from everybody else.)
But transforming an extremely profitable film franchise into what is more or less a solid TV show, one that seems to have delighted millions, isn't nothing.
Film franchises have existed for ages and ages, of course.
But for the most part, the modern film franchise (which I would define as any film series released post–Star Wars in 1977) is subject to directorial whims. Even the ones with consistent directors — Steven Spielberg on the Indiana Jones films, or Christopher Nolan on the Dark Knight trilogy — aren't really trying to tell big, sprawling stories but rather more episodic tales that appear to add up to a whole.
Take Star Wars, which qualified as Hollywood's "most TV-like" franchise before Marvel came along. That franchise pales in comparison with the MCU when it comes to degree of storytelling difficulty, mostly telling one story that follows the same set of characters across several movies. (George Lucas, the "showrunner" of the first six Star Wars films, drew his inspiration from old movie serials, cheekily evidenced in Star Wars' opening text crawls.)
The very nature of the MCU means it's heavily influenced by comics. All of its films are populated by comic book superheroes, and many of the stories they tell are loosely based on comics sagas. Plus, the whole idea of splitting off heroes into their own stories and then bringing them together for crossover events is a direct lift from the way modern superhero comics are published.
But comics have the benefit of frequency on their side. Most superhero books are published once per month, on a relatively regular schedule, and they come out year after year after year, if sales hold steady. Most TV shows might air in weekly installments, but, especially in this cable age, they air for a fast and furious number of weeks before leaving the air for a year.
Marvel's innovation, then, has been to take the basic idea of how superhero comics are structured and coat it in TV paint.
The storytelling is much more TV-like, in terms of how individual films are structured like "episodes" of a TV show (with roughly similar stories, even — for a long time, you could accurately describe every Marvel film as "a fight at the beginning, a fight in the middle, a fight at the end, all linked together with snark"), and in terms of how they assume your past knowledge of the characters' exploits. Again, that's true of comics, but it's much more true of modern cable television.
And there's always the sense with Marvel's films that the company constantly has one eye on the whole, sometimes to the detriment of the parts — by far one of the most common complaints about television in the Netflix era.
Examining this also explains why the recent efforts of other superhero movie makers — like Warner Bros. (Batman v Superman) and Fox (X-Men: Apocalypse) — fall so short of Marvel, even though they're produced like more traditional films. The simple fact is that those studios have failed to grasp how Marvel's pseudo-showrunner model allows for the kind of big-picture thinking this sort of mega franchise requires.
Sure, Warner Bros. has Zack Snyder working on many of its films, while Fox's X-Men team-up movies, at least, have a somewhat consistent directorial voice in Bryan Singer. But Snyder and Singer are primarily steeped in film and the way movie stories have always been told.
Singer is perhaps the best director of superpowered action on Earth, but when it comes time to have Apocalypse dovetail with story threads from the earlier X-Men: First Class (which was directed by someone else entirely), both Singer's direction and Simon Kinberg's script rely on hackneyed devices and clumsy storytelling, usually involving poorly inserted flashbacks.
Snyder's Warner Bros. films, meanwhile, seemingly start from the assumption that people have come not to see an individual story but a long series of teases for other ones. It's like he knows what he needs to do but can't focus on the task at hand.
TV certainly isn't immune to that problem, but shows that get caught up in high-concept premises and big-picture thinking before doing the necessary legwork to establish characters and their relationships tend to be canceled.
I say all of this not to suggest that film franchises resembling TV series is necessarily a good trend. For as much as I generally enjoy the Marvel movies, I'm disheartened by the possibility that their particular form might take over the film industry. Marvel has clearly tapped into something, but to replicate it would require aping the company's entire corporate structure, something other studios are ill-equipped to do.
The world will always need solid standalone films, ones that don't promise lots and lots of other films to come and largely tell single stories that may leave tiny breadcrumbs for future stories to pick up and follow. Hopefully they'll be helmed by directors who are more interested in putting their own stamp on the material, even if it clashes wildly with some house style.
But I also don't think it's the end of the world if Marvel continues on as a huge, hypercompetent behemoth. Maybe it's because I'm a TV critic first and foremost, but there's a reason TV has stolen so much of the cultural conversation over the past few decades. There's something legitimately exciting about the way the medium tells stories when it's good, and if nothing else, Marvel's success shows the film world could learn from that.
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