Avengers: Age of Ultron.

[MediumHigh]

'Both' X-Men films ?  Can we narrow that down ?  

Haha, fair. The two most recent ones. I thought they entirely stood on their own feet as narratives, and were a whole ton of fun to boot.

I guess that's my main criticism of some of the Marvel films. They're either bad because the people in them or making them are bad (hulk movies, ghost rider, etc) or they're bad because the plots don't make sense without extensive outside knowledge. Imagine trying to jump into a late season of Game of Thrones without having read the books or seen the prior episodes, it wouldn't be entertaining at all. And while I get that comic book fans love all the subtle references and in jokes, when the plot begins to lean on them it's going to make the film suffer as a whole.

I don't know what movie qualifies for that... they've done a pretty good job of dumbing down the lore.

[eldaec]

I have read a couple of reviews saying A2 was starting to go that way ( needing to have seen prior films, not comics)  though I haven't seen it yet.

I do think that is the reason they don't seem to be expecting to make more 3 films in a run for a single character. And why I think we're all expecting some heroes to go on sabbatical soon.

[K9]

'Both' X-Men films ?  Can we narrow that down ?  

Haha, fair. The two most recent ones. I thought they entirely stood on their own feet as narratives, and were a whole ton of fun to boot.

I guess that's my main criticism of some of the Marvel films. They're either bad because the people in them or making them are bad (hulk movies, ghost rider, etc) or they're bad because the plots don't make sense without extensive outside knowledge. Imagine trying to jump into a late season of Game of Thrones without having read the books or seen the prior episodes, it wouldn't be entertaining at all. And while I get that comic book fans love all the subtle references and in jokes, when the plot begins to lean on them it's going to make the film suffer as a whole.

I don't know what movie qualifies for that... they've done a pretty good job of dumbing down the lore.

Perhaps 'makes no sense' is a bit strong. But as I've said before, i didn't find the plot of CA at all interesting, a lot of the interest seemed to rest on references and homages that lay outside the frame of the films narrative. Likewise Thor 2, while enjoyable, contained a bunch of references that you would have no means of getting without spending hours on wikipedia, or reading relevant comics. I'm not saying it's killing the franchises, the films are still watchable. I'm just saying that the ones which do best are the ones which stand most firmly on their own feet.

I have read a couple of reviews saying A2 was starting to go that way ( needing to have seen prior films, not comics)  though I haven't seen it yet.

I do think that is the reason they don't seem to be expecting to make more 3 films in a run for a single character. And why I think we're all expecting some heroes to go on sabbatical soon.

I do wonder how long they can string out certain franchises, but then they've made seven Fast and Furious films, so who knows. If they're made well they'll continue to draw people in. Whether they can stay profitable given the significant production costs associated with the MCU films remains to be seen though.

Also, I imagine many of the actors might want a change of scene.

[Ironwood]

I suspect you're entirely right.  If you look at Cap 2, a LOT of people thought that was the best one yet.  And yet, at heart (ignoring the Bucky stuff), it was pretty much just a badass spy/bourne type film.

You really didn't NEED to know anything beyond 'Evil Spectre-types trying to take over the world via big machines'.

[jgsugden]

We're acting like the people at Marvel have not been dealing with this issue longer than any of us have been alive.  This is the same issue as in the comics: How do you balance keeping people interesting in the individual story, interested in the larger story, benefiting from the cross pollination, yet not angering people by forcing them to follow everything to stay up to date...  It is a balancing act best achieved when the elements support, but do not require, each other.

[Merusk]

The people at Marvel dealing with this are my age or slightly older so, no, they haven't been dealing with this longer than most of us have been alive.  Nice hyperbole, though.

Also, comics aren't the model they should be looking to in any way. That hasn't been successful in doing much beyond driving non-addict fans away for decades.

I'm one of the geekiest geeks I know and I couldn't put up with comics bullshit of, "read this" and "refer to that."  It was all such obvious crap to drive additional sales of other books that around the time I was 16 (1991) and buying 4 Batman copies a month and whatever Marvel stuff I was reading I said, "Nah, fuck this."

[jgsugden]

The people at Marvel dealing with this are my age or slightly older so, no, they haven't been dealing with this longer than most of us have been alive.  Nice hyperbole, though.

Also, comics aren't the model they should be looking to in any way. That hasn't been successful in doing much beyond driving non-addict fans away for decades.

I'm one of the geekiest geeks I know and I couldn't put up with comics bullshit of, "read this" and "refer to that."  It was all such obvious crap to drive additional sales of other books that around the time I was 16 (1991) and buying 4 Batman copies a month and whatever Marvel stuff I was reading I said, "Nah, fuck this."

The people dealing with this stuff at Marvel have learned from those that came before. 

They drive some away - and they pull others in deeper.  In the end, comics have done very well with their crossovers by getting people frustrated that they have to dig so deep to stay current, but so many people staying current with so many titles for so long...

[Merusk]

In your mind the comics industry is fine and dandy, isn't it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

In your mind the comics industry is fine and dandy, isn't it.

Or relevant in any way to the tv/movie audiences.

[MediumHigh]

Marvel and DC hasn't come to terms with the fact that the real money is in Graphic Novels. But they'll keep trying to push the "comic book" because that's all they've done. By now its not the 80s or the 90s. Art and Writers are cheap, so you can feel free to reboot your entire franchise, every 2-3 years in order ride a short wave of sales follow by a rapid crash into obscurity. The movies, the tv shows, and not even the animated series can't save that, which is why comics books will languish in neverland where the true neckbeards, social warriors, and generally uninteresting human beings will keep buying. While the grown ups by graphic novels.

[jgsugden]

I can't decide which of you is more cool for all of the contempt you manage to generate.  Clearly, DC and Marvel are so poorly run that they're about to disappear into obscurity. It must have been their poor comic management, the backbone of their business, that did them in...

[Mazakiel]

The constant reboots of continuity and poor storyline decisions don't indicate a pair of companies each enacting some sort of vast and nuanced master plan.  They indicate a pair of companies constantly throwing out new ideas to see what sticks, and then deciding to throw up their hands and go, "Fuck it!" before starting over every few years. 

Modern comics are, overall, not the money makers.  They're the source of IP and general story seeds that get refined into the real money makers, that being movies, merchandise, and now Netflix shows.  It's why local comic shops tend to be more of an overall geek culture store if they want to stay open.  Board games, CCGs, and assorted merchandise are what keep the doors open.  Comic books are no longer as relevant as the hardcore fans would like to believe. 

Thankfully for Marvel, their movie teams have been very successful.  DC, Fox, and Sony have been playing catch-up, to mixed results. 

[Nevermore]

I can't decide which of you is more cool for all of the contempt you manage to generate.  Clearly, DC and Marvel are so poorly run that they're about to disappear into obscurity. It must have been their poor comic management, the backbone of their business, that did them in...

That's certainly what did Marvel in back in the 90s, which forced them into bankruptcy and to sell off the movie rights for their major characters for almost nothing.

[Margalis]

They're superhero movies. I feel like you're pointing out that Fast and the Furious movies always have a bunch of driving sequences in them.

The range of comic books stories is far greater than "generic one-off villain attempts to destroy world using blue lasers." The vast majority of comic stories are not about that.

Saving the world stuff works in comics in part because there is downtime and smaller, more localized stories - it's cool when Spider-Man teams up with the Avengers to help save the world because that's in comparison to other times when he maybe stops a silly guy like Paste Pot Pete from robbing a bank.

The problem with the Marvel movies is that they quickly ramped up to saving the world from an existential threat and now they're sort of stuck there. Thanos is going to try to destroy the world...ok. The guy from Thor 2 was going to destroy a bunch of worlds. Ronan was going to destroy an Earth-alike. I assume Ultron is trying to take over the world and eliminate human life or something. Even in Captain America 2 the threat is largely existential and based on blue lasers.

The Fast and Furious movies have gotten bigger and more ridiculous over time but they started small and still have room to grow before they're fighting Galactus-level threats in every movie.

Pointing out that they all heavily involve superpowered dudes hitting each other in big action sequences is kind of odd thing to criticize them for though in the same way it would be odd to criticize Westerns for all having scenes where guys shoot at each other

That was not my criticism at all, and characterizing it as such is dishonest.

My criticism is that the villains are so disposable that even the heroes treat them as such, that the stakes are ostensibly high (save the world!) but there's very little consequence to even the most dire scenarios, and that the threat in the movies can't top previous films because they dialed it up to 11 too fast. Saving the world has become old hat. The threat of Thanos is the same threat presented by the guy in Thor 2.
---

As far as Captain America 2, I suspect a reason people like it is the action direction. It just has better action sequences, particularly the fight scenes and how the characters use body weight and momentum-based moves. These stand out because CGI typically does a poor job of lending characters weight.

[Velorath]

I don't think Cap 2 can really be classified as a "save the world" movie. Thematically it's Freedom vs. Security, and the main villain is a regular human. Even the Winter Solider himself isn't at a particularly high power level. They're preventing a weapon from being used that's going to kill a lot of people, but for the most part they're fighting very human threats in order to do that, like just about every Bond movie for instance. GOTG is a sci-fi movie. Saving a planet fits the genre fairly well there. Then you've got two Avengers movies, where yes, you probably need a big threat to justify getting this group together. Then you've got Thor, who is one of the more powerful characters and typically isn't going to be stopping bank robbers. He's without his hammer for most of the first movie, so they started that series on a smaller scale. Not seeing a problem there. They ramped the scale up for the second one, but the series also has one of the least disposable villains in the MCU in Loki, and even though Thor has stopped the villain who was attempting to end the world, by the end of the movie we see that he's actually suffered a pretty big loss and isn't even aware of it. None of the Iron Man movies involve saving the world, nor does Hulk, or Cap 1. Ant Man doesn't look like it's about saving the world, and Civil War will presumably have a large focus on heroes fighting heroes, although I'm sure there will be an actual villain in it at the end.

Beyond that, all I can say is that I think we watch these movies for very different reasons. I don't expect a feeling of consequence from superhero movies because years of reading comics has told me there is none.

[Ironwood]

Can I just say it bugs me more and more that I think of it :

Ultrons mouth was waaaay too mobile.  Like, really.  I don't know.  How did he manage that.

That is all.

[jgsugden]

I can't decide which of you is more cool for all of the contempt you manage to generate.  Clearly, DC and Marvel are so poorly run that they're about to disappear into obscurity. It must have been their poor comic management, the backbone of their business, that did them in...

That's certainly what did Marvel in back in the 90s, which forced them into bankruptcy and to sell off the movie rights for their major characters for almost nothing.

And clearly they had no idea how to recover.  That is why this 'Marvel' you speak of is such a forgotten piece of trivia. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

I can't decide which of you is more cool for all of the contempt you manage to generate.  Clearly, DC and Marvel are so poorly run that they're about to disappear into obscurity. It must have been their poor comic management, the backbone of their business, that did them in...

That's certainly what did Marvel in back in the 90s, which forced them into bankruptcy and to sell off the movie rights for their major characters for almost nothing.

And clearly they had no idea how to recover.  That is why this 'Marvel' you speak of is such a forgotten piece of trivia. 

Stop arguing for the sake of it. 

[Malakili]

Beyond that, all I can say is that I think we watch these movies for very different reasons. I don't expect a feeling of consequence from superhero movies because years of reading comics has told me there is none.

On the one hand, that's fine.  Super heroes aren't really about consequences. On the other hand, when things become entirely consequence free and it's just about the spectacle films lose a lot more than comics do in my opinion. Just ask Michael Bay.  Now, these certainly aren't Michael Bay movies, they are a lot better than that.  But it does still get a bit... exhausting... after a while.  I love the Avengers, I've got a box full of specifically Avengers comics.  But at the same time, I don't feel a powerful drive to see this film. I'll watch it, it will be fun, but I'm not champing at the bit either.

I think it has to do with just general over-saturation. 3 Iron Man movies, 2 Cap movies, 2 Thor movies, 2 avengers movies, a hulk movie, a hulk reboot movie.  Plus little plot points play out across multiple films in different franchises.  I haven't seen The Winter Soldier, did I miss something that is going to come up in Avengers 2? Thor 3? Ant-man? In some ways the marvel universe thing has its benefits, but it also feels a little overwhelming.

 I'm already past the point where I know I'm not going to see all of them.  And when they all fit together not wanting to see all of them makes me border on not caring if I see any of them.

[Merusk]

My thoughts mirror Dan O'Brien on the issue, Malakili. See if yours are similar:
http://www.cracked.com/video_19310_why-death-needs-to-matter-in-marvel-universe.html

There's also this one:
http://www.cracked.com/video_19326_the-inevitable-confusing-future-marvel-movies.html
Some of which covers things Margalis brought up, some of which has been absent here, like: "Hell, I've got to watch/ view HOW MANY shows/ movies?"

[Ironwood]

  I haven't seen The Winter Soldier, did I miss something that is going to come up in Avengers 2?

Er.  Yeah.  Ooops.

[Merusk]

Shit, looks like I get to watch it before Friday then.

This is what they're talking about in that 2nd video: Too much crap to catch-up on.  Am I going to have to worry about anything from Daredevil or AOS? If so I'll just give the movie a miss.

[Ironwood]

Not a major thing.  But there will be dialogue where you say 'Wait, What ?'

And the end bit will be all 'Wait, What ?'

And...

LOOK JUST WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE, IT'S AWESOME AND HAS CROSSBONES IN IT.

[Teleku]

I have no idea why it's so hard for you guys to catch up.  Marvel doesn't put out movies nearly fast enough for me.  I want them to release even more per year!  

[Merusk]

We're not all stuck in a 3rd world country working 40 hours with no family and lots of time on our hands.   

[Malakili]

Not a major thing.  But there will be dialogue where you say 'Wait, What ?'

And the end bit will be all 'Wait, What ?'

And...

LOOK JUST WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE, IT'S AWESOME AND HAS CROSSBONES IN IT.

That's all well and good, the point is I just can't be bothered to keep track of this sort of thing.  I know enough about Marvel's comics from when I did regularly read comics that I can probably figure out what's what anyway.  But the point is it leads towards a kind of all or nothing feeling, and I'm as likely to lean towards the nothing side as I am towards the all side.

Since we're on  a gaming forum, it's kind of like an MMO subscription.  Even if I am having fun logging in 20 minutes a day to do daily quests or crafting or whatever, I'm probably just going to dump the game anyway because there is so much of the game I'm not playing, even though I am enjoying the part I AM playing.

I have no idea why it's so hard for you guys to catch up.  Marvel doesn't put out movies nearly fast enough for me.  I want them to release even more per year!  

It's not "hard" it's just not anywhere near a priority for me.  My movie watching habits are: MAYBE see a movie I actually want to see in a theater.  If not, which is the usual scenario, I wait until it's on Netflix.  If a particular movie doesn't come to Netflix for a while or my wife has X things she wants in the queue, or just whatever it just falls of my list of things I am keeping track of.  Hell, I didn't see the first Captain America until less than a year ago and only then because they had it on the plane while I was on a 10 hour flight.

[Fordel]

I usually just buy them on DVD or whatever, they come out super fast on physical media these days.

[jgsugden]

These movies can stand on their own, but they're better when watched together.  They are written so that they make sense whether you only see one thing, only see the movies, see everything, etc...  For example, Daredevil did not require that you knew anything about the MCU.  However, if you did, the articles on the wall and the references to the Avengers added to the series.

SHIELD seasons 1 and 2 are designed by the Whedons to be a companion piece that connects to the movies, but they are certainly not required.  You've got Extremis from IM III, Kree from GotG, the obvious connection to Cap II, tie in episodes to Thor II, etc....  They intentionally wove threads from each of the films into the show.  However, nothing that takes place in the show is required for the movies - and from Joss Whedon's perspective, the events of the show are not even considered to happen when it comes to an audience that only sees the movies.  Whedon killed a character in AV I, then resurrected the character for SHIELD, and then demanded that the character not have any contact with most of the characters from the movies and not be included in AV II to maintain the importance of the death for the movie going audience. 

[Pennilenko]

I asked my wife how she feels about Marvel and all their format cross overs.

She said, "I like super hero movies."

[Velorath]

Watched it last night and enjoyed it. Advance warning for people who haven't seen it yet, there's a mid-credits scene but no post-credits scene. Feel free to leave the theater before the credits finish.

[Malakili]

My thoughts mirror Dan O'Brien on the issue, Malakili. See if yours are similar:
http://www.cracked.com/video_19310_why-death-needs-to-matter-in-marvel-universe.html

There's also this one:
http://www.cracked.com/video_19326_the-inevitable-confusing-future-marvel-movies.html
Some of which covers things Margalis brought up, some of which has been absent here, like: "Hell, I've got to watch/ view HOW MANY shows/ movies?"

I finally watched these videos just now.  The death one I agree with from a film standpoint, but I also understand that super heroes (or villains) just..dont...die.

The second one is more or less how I feel about it.  But both of the videos come from a standpoint of, basically, "I will watch everything!"  I just know I won't.  I first read The Hobbit when I was about 10 years old, but I didn't even get around to seeing The Battle of the Five Armies until literally last weekend. 

It's not even really that much of a complaint, it's more just a statement that the way they have structured things is starting to alienate me.

[jgsugden]

I think the question of hero death is an interesting one for film.  In comics, the characters can basically not age and continue forever.  In movies, they need to recast to do it - and they always have the option to reboot.  Further, they have so many characters from the books to draw upon that they can as easily afford to end a character as they can afford to never introduce them.  I think that points towards a situation where character death may be easier to be permanent. 

[Merusk]

Yes and character development that is lacking in comics.

Then they fuck it all up and pull the "I'm not really dead" bullshit comics do.

[jgsugden]

I'm sure they'll get around to permanently killing off some major main characters pretty quickly.

[Sky]

Wait, I should watch Winter Soldier first? Hm, is that on Amazon Prime yet? Nope, TWENTY DOLLARS. This is why "we" haven't caught up yet. I'm not dropping a twenty to watch a streaming movie at home.

I finally got tired of waiting to see Days of Future Past and ponied up $6 to watch it a couple weeks ago. But $20? Nope.

We were talking about seeing the new Avengers at an IMAX since we'll be in a mall that has one this weekend. But meh, if I'm not going to get all the story bits because I missed everything between the last Avengers and now, fuck it. Iron Man 3? $20. Thor:tDW? $20. To watch the three movies involved (assuming there aren't more I don't know about?) for $60 at home before blowing $40 to watch the new one?

Nope.