The Haunted Mansion was decent, it made me want to see LaKeith Stanfield star in more fun adventure movies (something like Brendan Frasier’s The Mummy).
Wish was a mess, it felt like they wanted to make a Disney multiverse movie but chickened out and just made a bland Disney movie that constantly references better Disney movies (mostly Snow White to the point where you wonder if Wish is intended to be its prequel). A couple songs were decent but the bulk them felt unpolished and forgettable, like they needed a few more edits and re-writes to come together. The anti-establishment themes were weak and made me wish I were re-watching Nimona instead.
The Marvels was good as a Ms. Marvel TV special but not as a Captain Marvel blockbuster.
Yeah, Wish is an odd movie to watch. It’s not too clear why this movie even exists except to promote the 100 years for Disney which doesn’t really happen till the credits roll. Maybe they thought if we didn’t understand a reference made in the film we would be motivated to watch other Disney content ?
I’m surprised about Indiana Jones. It was my favorite of all the movies. Back to OG story with Greek history, Nazis, and a little supernatural stuff. I watched it twice.
Your favorite of all of them? Really? I’m honestly curious because I found it pretty terrible, in the vein of crystal skull more than the OGs. In my view it was all over the place, didn’t tell a cohesive story, and dragged on for at least 45 minutes longer than it should’ve. I’m having trouble even recalling what the movie was even about and it’s only been a couple months.
It was better than Crystal Skull because it didn't quite so explicitly sci-fi the magic, the set pieces were a little better, and Helena was less annoying than Mutt, but both movies are sort of equally useless, and openly depressed Indy was VERY depressing. The character always had some undiagnosed mental health issues pushing him towards unhealthy risk-taking, but Mangold's Indy just made me sad.
The leads are good, with Brie Larson finally relaxing a little, they actually let the pace breathe once or twice, and the switching gimmick made for some visually interesting fights. It suffered from MCU-villain syndrome and had a kind of light vibe that didn’t quite jibe with the budget, but I think long term it’ll be a minor gem, at least among people who don’t reflexively hate superheroes who depart from looking and acting like stoically traumatized WW2 veterans.
I’ve been complaining about this for a while, but Disney has not been giving fans a chance to catch up with its theatrical release schedule. Since Shang-Chi, Marvel has released 9 films back-to-back, each one ending its theatrical run before the previous film was available on Disney+. I know this because I missed seeing Shang-Chi in the theaters, and didn’t want to see anything that might have spoilers. This gets especially complicated when the TV shows tie into the movies, so you end up putting off entire seasons for months, avoiding discussion forums and Marvel memes for fear of spoilers.
Add to that the mixed quality of their movies, and it really killed any momentum they had even among die-hard fans like myself.
I’m finally caught up now, and think Deadpool and Wolverine could save the entire MCU, but I really hope they stick with the reduced frequency. That, or bring the movies to streaming faster.
If they want people to get excited about a shared cinematic universe, they should reward fans with tie-ins rather than punishing them for failing to keep up.
When you use the word ‘Woke’, It makes it sound like you’re trying to insult something but don’t actually have something to critique. Which then implies your whole statement is based on nothing.
Pardon me if I’m using a derogatory term in an incorrect way, english is not my 1st language. With Woke, I wanted to convey the message of Disney shoehorning girl power in a forceful or artificial way. In contrast to for example all Alien movies where it works perfectly. I don’t mean that women should not be protagonists at all. Sorry if that’s how my post reads like. Maybe I should have worded it better.
I’m not a right wing extremist, sorry for wording my post. But I stand by my mistake, that’s why I won’t edit my post. I saw the movie on D+, and I thought everything about it was fake. The Xmen movies had almost all the same ingredients, and while some of them where better than others, all of them felt honest to me. I didn’t feel like they were riding on values in order to sell. The Marvels just felt artificial to me.
I think I know what you mean. The best example I can think of was in Endgame, when all the women lined up to backup Captain Marvel, as if to demonstrate that the MCU has had badass women heroes all along. The scene felt inauthentic and forced, and I think that’s what you mean by “fake,” but correct me if I’m wrong.
But I just disagree. I don’t think there was that much pandering in The Marvels, and it certainly wasn’t the most glaring problem with the movie. For me, it was pacing and scale, like here’s an entire planet of Skrulls, and the entire Planet of Skrulls is going to be destroyed by a Skrull-Planet-Destroying Kree Warship with Anciet-Kree-Skrull-Planet-Destroying Quantum Bands, and all of it takes place in this one valley about the size of Tomorrowland at Disneyworld. And then let’s jump to an entirely other planet and destroy yet another civilization, except this one is a musical and takes place at a beach resort.
And I liked the musical bit. I thought that was fun. But it was not good. The movie was flawed in many ways. However, I think there are a lot of people who have taken pleasure from its failures, either because they are tired of comic book movies and want to see Marvel fail, or they are bigots and want to pretend “wokeness” is a real problem they didn’t just make up to avoid admitting they are bigots.
Quantumania was similarly bad, with additional CG/green screen problems and a setting that tried so hard (and failed) to inspire wonder. But critics didn’t enjoy that failure nearly as much, and it’s because they couldn’t blame a political agenda.
Eternals is another excellent example of the trend. It was not a good movie. It had too many characters, too little character development, elastic stakes, and nonsensical plot twists that, despite being foreshadowed and telegraphed, still had to be spelled out to even register as twists. “And now I, the obviously evil giant telepath, will tell you something that you should find shocking!” It was bad.
But it wasn’t bad because they cast Salma Hayek as Ajak. It wasn’t bad because Phastos had healthy relationships with his husband and child. It wasn’t bad because Makkari was a dark skinned woman who is deaf. I don’t doubt that each of those decisions was some calculated machination to promote the film for its “firsts,” but the pandering wasn’t at all distracting or unnatural within the context of the film. The actors did a fine job with their roles, they just happened to be in a bad movie.
And the bigots went nuts over it. They lost their collective shit, as if they actually cared about the changes to the source material. The bigots reveled in the movie’s failure at the box office, ejaculating tweets all over each other like “Go woke, go broke!”
There’s no defending these movies as cinematic masterpieces. If you don’t love them, I completely understand. I enjoyed them for what they were, people bringing my childhood comics to life. I can look past some flaws and enjoy the humor and the action and not get hung up on plot holes or cheesy dialogue. And I can see the pandering where it exists. But I can also see the political agenda of the critics looking for cracks in the armor.
And so, if I overreacted to your comment, I apologize. I should not have assumed the worst of you, and I recognize I am overly sensitive to this shit. I do hope you’ll reconsider the use of the term “woke” if only to avoid the dog whistle pandering of which you were previously unaware. Either way, have a good day.
Xmen is a great example, there are men, women, and everyone in between, just like real life. When there’s an only alpha macho team, it feels like The Expendables movie… similarly, an all female cast, seems equally forced.
Another great example is Star Trek, I love Strange New Worlds, there’s an episode where they are all forced to sing and it’s so, so good. It was amazingly executed, wonderfully hilarious, the press praised it. Star Trek has an all ethnically encompassing roster of binary, non-binary human and extraterrestrial characters alike, orders of magnitude in comparison to The Marvels, and I haven’t even thought about questioning any of it. In fact I just realized this now, when writing this reply.
I agree with you on the pacing, and I believe it may have to do with that. Like there’s no build up, not enough justification as to why are we seeing what’s on screen. I think this may be why I believe there’s pandering, because it’s all unjustified. The scene in Endgame would be unthinkable in Xmen, why would they group up by gender? It’s crazy if you think about it.
Quantumania is so bad on so many levels, I don’t know where to start. Eternals is so bland and forgettable, I feel bad for the cast, most are very good actors. I didn’t know anything about what you mention, but I didn’t find it pandering. It was just weak on all fronts.
I absolutely agree on this:
I enjoyed them for what they were, people bringing my childhood comics to life.
This is why I keep watching bad Marvel movies after another 🤣
Regarding this:
I should not have assumed the worst of you I do hope you’ll reconsider the use of the term “woke”
First of all, you did not. It was 100% my fault for using a word I didn’t really understand it’s meaning. And I learned that and much more about Marvel, thanks to you. I really appreciate that you paused to look beyond the first post and tried to understand. You’re awesome, and I’m glad there are people like you on Lemmy. Thanks a lot for taking the time to discuss and enrich my English and Marvel knowledge.
Just be aware that “woke” is a very charged term. It has been hijacked by the alt-right to critique anything they say that’s going against their conservative values. It is so vague that even alt-right pundits fail to define what the word means. It basically translates to “I’m out of touch and I don’t like this”.
The word you might want to use instead is “pandering” which Hollywood (and mass media in general) has been doing it since forever. Basically it’s insincerely showing support for some values just for the money. Which Disney has and is very much doing here being. But the alt-right will throw that label on genuine actions and media simply because it goes against their worldview and it becomes very inconsistent (e…g, strong super-agent man fantasy fine, strong super-agent woman fantasy is “woke”).
The word you should use is “pandering,” but I still disagree that the movie was pandering to anyone except comic book fans. It wasn’t a great film, but it was fun and true to the source material (with some understandable changes to Ms. Marvel’s powerset).
The heroes are women. The primary antagonist is a woman. Half of all people are women, so it’s not some crazy statistical anomaly to have a cast of primarily women.
Yes, they gender-swapped Dar-Benn. I’d wager all the money in my pockets that nobody complaining about “wokeness” had ever heard of Dar-Benn before this movie came out. Gender-swapping characters isn’t even a bad idea, considering the rampant misogyny in the history of comic book publishing (and, like, reality in general). Superhero teams have been sausage fests for like 100 years, and the women that were included were little more than eye candy and thinly-veiled fetish caricatures.
I agree with you on all points. But I feel like Disney did it only for the money. Lots of my favorite movies have strong female casts or leads, like Alien, Contact, Arrival, Star Wars, Anime: Ghost in the Shell, Nausicaa, Mononoke and more. But I felt those movies were honest.
I don’t have anything against a primarily female cast, or gemder-swapped Dar-Benn at all. I don’t care about that. I just felt the movie was fake in spirit.
I’m sorry if I have offended you by misusing the word “woke” which I now know it’s meaning, and secondly if I have expressed myself in a demeaning manner against a movie you enjoyed. My first mistake was out of ignorance, the latter mistake is of bad etiquette, and I apologize for that. I hope this post can convey my opinion in a more respectful manner, beyond our opposing point or views or not, i really value healthy discussion and the exchange of point of views as I enjoy learning, and even more so with well educated people like you, well versed in a topic (in this case, comic-books).
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post (that I now understand looked like a right wing extremist’s opinion 🤣) and sharing your point of view with me.
Yeah it’s completely unreliable as they have a vested interest in making it appear as though they made a loss much of the time.
They also don’t count major income sources like merchandising deals, which can generate several times more than the box office revenue. Franchises like star wars and the MCU generate billions from toys, games, etc.
I instantly hate any movie where I can see that they introduce a character that would be easy to assemble in a factory assembly line.
Like always within the first 20 minutes of one of these movies they introduce a side character like “this is round thing and his eyes glow when he’s angry.” Or " that guy over there, that’s OlafD2 the cuddle pillow that vibrates when danger is near."
I read a while back that studios fudge numbers to make it look like they lost money on movies, or make it look like they made less overall. This way they can get tax cuts and not pay royalties until the movie has made money.
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