But that would mean that you'd quickly run out of Predator stories to tell and couldn't milk the franchise for more cash. That sort of attitude could lead towards original ideas and putting movies on the schedule which include interesting and unique topics and plotlines. If the jobs of movie executives involve all the trouble of dealing with those sorts of things instead of churning out a series of ever worse sequels, how would they be able to leave the office at noon to go hang out at the club?
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Underseer
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Heh. Indeed.
Anyhoo, did I mention that I often love what Moviebob has to say?
Not always, but often.
He rightly pans the DCEU because WB executives failed to grasp a very basic thing that Marvel execs understand.
Each Marvel movie is expected to stand or fall on its own and the links to the rest of the MCU are actually fairly light. Each movie has its own tone, its own themes, and is partly based on a particular sub-genre (e.g. Ant-Man is a heist film, Captain America: Civil War is based on 70s political thrillers, etc.) even if certain elements of the movie are expected to follow a certain formula.
DC on the other hand looked at one thing that happened to be popular at one particular moment (the Nolan Batman films), and then launched a 10 year plan in which they tried to make every movie feel like the Nolan Batman movies, including Superman which I think was a monumental fuckup. I like my Batman movies dark 'n gritty, but a Superman movie? Are you fucking kidding me?
So DC finally realized that was a bad idea.
Now we're getting Supergirl instead of Superman, Batwoman instead of Batman, Harley Quinn is going to star in a Birds of Prey movie, Mera is going to be an equal co-star in the Aquaman movie, and[ent]hellip[/ent] oh fucking shit, they are going to correct the problem of trying to make every single DC movie like a Nolan Batman movie by making every fucking movie like the Wonder Woman movie, aren't they?
OK, this is obviously speculation on Moviebob's part, but I sincerely hope that's not what WB is about to do with the DCEU. I loved the Wonder Woman movie. I really fucking loved it. But I also loved the Nolan Batman movies. That doesn't mean I think it was a good idea to turn every DCEU movie into something like a Nolan Batman movie.
Wonder Woman is currently a nice bright point that stands out from the rest of the morass of comic book movies by being genuinely different, and if they make every movie like Wonder Woman, then Wonder Woman won't be so interesting and different anymore, and I'm really not sure a Birds of Prey movie or a Batman movie should have a tone like the Wonder Woman movie did.
Bargle. I hope Moviebob is wrong about this, but I fear he may be right.
Walter Hamada is supposed to be the "Kevin Feige of the DCEU." I guess it all comes down to how well Hamada understands what went wrong with the DCEU up until now and how much of a say he has over the DCEU compared to the other WB execs.
repoman
Contributor
I out of principle refused to watch even one minute of the dark, moody Superman, also won't watch anymore dark James Bond (testicle smashing while tied to a chair!?!?!?!? - I have liveleak and bestgore for that). Also refused to watch any Hobbit movie that should never have been more than one movie.
There might be some bright news coming out of that. I don't know if you watch the Supergirl show, but they had a guy come on and play Superman in it for a couple of episodes and he did an amazing job of portraying Superman how the guy should be portrayed - bright, cheery, hopeful and always saying and doing the right thing. They were banned from using him again, though, because WB didn't want a different version of Superman out there while they had him in the movies (especially given the different receptions by the audience for the two portrayals).
Now with Cavell basically out and no Superman movies planned anytime in the future, all of a sudden they're having him show up in more episodes again and have also cast a lady to play Lois Lane. So, it may be that in a year or so, we'll get a Superman TV show done by an actor and writers who get the character and are able to pull him off as he's supposed to be.
No. In order to have evil Superman or flawed and damaged Superman, you need to have good Superman first so there's a comparison for those characters and the differences in their personalities from the classic interpretation of the character add colour and depth to the part. Without that classic interpretation leading into them, you just get the "Well, that's a shitty version of Superman" which we got with Cavell.
I don't want some alternate or edgy version of Superman. I just want frigging Superman.
Underseer
Contributor
In the Trump age, shouldn't Red Son and Soviet Batman be good guys in order to avoid triggering all the Republican voters out there? They've already set up the American Superman and Batman as bad people, so they're already in position to do the Russian versions as good guys to really maximize their appeal to conservolibertarians.
Then all they have to do is change Wonder Woman into a man.
Underseer
Contributor
As most people know, the rock song Spirit In The Sky is basically a love letter from a Jewish musician to the African-American community. Apparently, he really loved listening to spirituals, so he wrote what basically was a rock 'n roll spiritual as a way of saying thank you to all those African-American gospel singers.
I figured that the popular My Hero Academia was just a cynical attempt to cash in on the current global popularity of Marvel movies, but it turns out that the writer/artist of the original manga intended this as a love letter to American comic books in much the same way Spirit In The Sky is a love letter to African-American spirituals.
In fact, the character All Might is drawn differently from all the other characters. Apparently that is a Japanese artists' attempt at doing a western style comic book drawing. It uh, took me a while to realize this was the case.
Anyway, I find that little detail about the manga/anime kind of adorable.
Here's an interview with the manga creator at an American comic convention:
https://comicbook.com/anime/2018/08/02/my-hero-academia-kohei-horikoshi-interview-anime-manga/#7
Apparently, his favorite story in American comic books was Superior Spider-Man (in which one of Spider-Man's arch-nemeses did a mind swap with him and genuinely tried to be a better hero than Peter Parker).
Also, here's famous American comic book artist Jim Lee doing a drawing of All Might, which seems like a very appropriate return tip-of-the-hat.
I figured that the popular My Hero Academia was just a cynical attempt to cash in on the current global popularity of Marvel movies, but it turns out that the writer/artist of the original manga intended this as a love letter to American comic books in much the same way Spirit In The Sky is a love letter to African-American spirituals.
In fact, the character All Might is drawn differently from all the other characters. Apparently that is a Japanese artists' attempt at doing a western style comic book drawing. It uh, took me a while to realize this was the case.
Anyway, I find that little detail about the manga/anime kind of adorable.
Here's an interview with the manga creator at an American comic convention:
https://comicbook.com/anime/2018/08/02/my-hero-academia-kohei-horikoshi-interview-anime-manga/#7
Apparently, his favorite story in American comic books was Superior Spider-Man (in which one of Spider-Man's arch-nemeses did a mind swap with him and genuinely tried to be a better hero than Peter Parker).
Also, here's famous American comic book artist Jim Lee doing a drawing of All Might, which seems like a very appropriate return tip-of-the-hat.
Underseer
Contributor
https://thehill.com/policy/technolo...ted-star-wars-the-last-jedi-online-to-amplify
See? It wasn't just white supremacists. It was white supremacists and Russian trolls (probably exploiting the racism of a certain segment of fans, but whatevs).
See? It wasn't just white supremacists. It was white supremacists and Russian trolls (probably exploiting the racism of a certain segment of fans, but whatevs).
Jimmy Higgins
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It is frightening how easy it is to whip up right-wing snowflakes. This sort of thing could lead to a complete idiot getting elected President one day.
*sigh*
Underseer
Contributor
I'm angry about racism of course, but as an unrepentant nerd I'm also really angry that this could really mess things up for the Star Wars franchise. I really think the new movies have been, well, what I'd hoped the prequels would be. I don't care for the "Star Wars story" movies, but I've been quite happy with the "main" Star Wars movies and I'm worried that Disney is going to shift gears and fuck up the whole franchise trying to appease white supremacists and professional Russian trolls.
Well, the posts here are one of the main reasons that they're able to do it. When those people are responded to and allowed to drive the conversation, the quality devolves. When they're the ones who decide on what it is that the fans are talking about, the movie companies are going to adjust accordingly because ... that's what the fans are talking about. That gets you dumb shifts in direction and Nazis being the people who decide which directors are hired and fired.
The key thing to do to stop this is to just not talk about them. Not in a passive aggressive "What Frank is saying is stupid and I'm making a point of not talking about Frank's points because I don't want to talk about Frank - now check out Frank's YouTube channel to find out why this conversation shouldn't be focusing so much on Frank" manner in which they're often "not" talked about. More in a just plain not talking about them kind of way.
Berating and railing against them gives them what they want even more than agreeing with them does because what they're saying remains the center of the conversation and helps suck the oxygen out of any more rational discussions of the topic. Just ignore what they're saying and talk about other things.
The key thing to do to stop this is to just not talk about them. Not in a passive aggressive "What Frank is saying is stupid and I'm making a point of not talking about Frank's points because I don't want to talk about Frank - now check out Frank's YouTube channel to find out why this conversation shouldn't be focusing so much on Frank" manner in which they're often "not" talked about. More in a just plain not talking about them kind of way.
Berating and railing against them gives them what they want even more than agreeing with them does because what they're saying remains the center of the conversation and helps suck the oxygen out of any more rational discussions of the topic. Just ignore what they're saying and talk about other things.
Underseer
Contributor
Is this the old "racists are racist because you complain about them" argument we hear so often from FOX News?
If we just shut up about the Nazis, they would stop being dicks and start being nice?
No, that's not even slightly related to what I was saying and I see no way to get to that conclusion from anything that I posted.
I'm saying that the racists and trolls are a fringe element and they should be treated that way as opposed to having the things that they're talking about dominate the conversation. That's in no way going to stop them from being racists and trolls and they'll continue to shout from the sidelines no matter how few people are listening to them and nothing anyone ever says is going to change them. There are tons of things to talk about regarding the new Star Wars movies without referencing their vile garbage but all that stuff is a lesser part of the conversation because so much energy is focused on their vile garbage as opposed to ... not doing that.
As an example, take the upcoming
Jimmy Higgins
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They aren't a fringe though. Trump is President, Britain voted for Brexit. With the help of trolls fanning the flames, this racist attitude is normalizing right now. The trolls are getting the racists out from under their rocks.
But how do you turn it off? How do you turn off the influence of social media? Companies have given these assholes a particularly effective megaphone, and just "ignoring" them isn't as easy as it sounds. The female actors have been overwhelmed with a barrage of hatred on social media. How do you stop that? How do you get the noise out of the signal?
You have the troll bots and the trolls fanning flames, you have SJWs that want to get noticed, you have people oversensitive to any criticism, you have some people that to make everything about race. These people are all the loudest online. It is like going onto an article comment section and trying to make a reasonable comment on an article and hoping all the comments will reflect likewise.
Racist!!!
And one of the reasons that they're normalizing is because people are taking their arguments seriously. One does not have to.
Yes, and comments sections have always been like that. However, it used to be a joke about how dumb the comments sections were and nobody particularly cared as opposed to now when a great deal of the conversation has to do with all the offensive comments about the discussion and less about the actual topic of discussion.
Underseer
Contributor
Look, we've tried your way for decades, and their numbers keep growing. I don't think ignoring them works.
They only back down when they see that they pay a social cost for stating their positions publicly. If you ignore them, they take that as tacit approval from others.
Ignoring them worked fine. It’s when people stopped ignoring them and letting them dominate mainstream conversation that they became a problem.
Underseer
Contributor
Ignoring them never works. They take your silence as tacit approval. That's how they work. You can't make racism go away by ignoring it and hoping it will just go away on its own, as if white supremacists will magically realize that their arguments are bad by having people shut up whenever they make those arguments. Only someone in a position of privilege would even try that as a solution to this kind of problem.
Anyway, the new Spider-Verse trailer looks pretty good:
I'm not even going to comment on the Venom movie. It had tons of production troubles and the reviews are already bad. I'm not going to waste my time.
This Spider-Verse thing, though, has potential. Sony seems to be embracing one of the weirdest aspects of the Spider-Man franchise, and this looks promising.