Articulated Thoughts General Movie News & Discussion

[TheSameIdiot]

I hope Spielberg's next flick is a lot more cutting than the rest of his 21st-century output. Science fiction without an edge is awful. He's been too sentimental since Munich or even Minority Report.

 

[SDcomics]

I enjoyed the Avatar movies. I thought they were a beautiful spectacle. I don't know if they were really worthy of scoring that well at the box office. I mean, 2 billion plus is a LOT, but I liked'em.

It actually does make good business sense for Disney to attach trailers to highly anticipated summer movies to Avatar. 2 billion in ticket sales equates to a lot of eyeballs. It'll be interesting to see if anyone goes just to see the Doomsday trailer. We'll know by how many people get up and walk out after it's shown. I know that happened with the Phantom Menace the year it came out. Folks went to the theater just to see that trailer. When it was shown, they got up and left. They had no interest in seeing the movie it was attached to.

It has been a long, long time since there's been a new movie with Avengers in the title. 2019 was when the last one came out. Seven years. I think fans are really looking forward to this one. We'll see.

 

[Fletch]

Well, the last one came out in 2022 and it made 2.3 billion globally.

So ... yeah?

People actually became suicidally depressed from the first movie. That's the kind of Thing I'm wondering about. Are people still "if I can't be a space-cat person, I don't want to live!"?

I don't really have my thumb on the pulse of that fandom.

 

[SDcomics]

People actually became suicidally depressed from the first movie. That's the kind of Thing I'm wondering about. Are people still "if I can't be a space-cat person, I don't want to live!"?

LOL, I have no bloody idea. This is the first I'm hearing about this. All I can tell you is I saw the movies and I enjoyed them. That's it. I know a lot of people who saw those films and no one said anything about becoming suicidal.

I don't really have my thumb on the pulse of that fandom.

You know more about it than I do because like I said, this is the first time I've heard about any of this.

I'm actually more interested in the trailers for Doomsday and Disclosure than I am in Avatar. Otherwise I wouldn't even be talking about it.

 

[JakeEkiss]

It has been a long, long time since there's been a new movie with Avengers in the title. 2019 was when the last one came out. Seven years. I think fans are really looking forward to this one. We'll see.

I am but a small portion of the fanbase, but I have zero wood for this Avengers movie. I don't understand bringing back RDJ at all, much less as Doom (from a narrative angle, I get that they decided to hard pivot away from Kang instead of just recasting him which would have been simpler and cheaper). I think the multiverse angle has largely been a neat concept without many good stories attached to it and I'm not hopeful this will break the trend. And I'm really, *really* not excited by wheeling out yet more aging legacy actors from previous Marvel movie incarnations. It feels like an increasingly desperate bid to have nostalgia in place of decent writing. Plus just too many goddamn characters. The initial teaser of all the chairs with everyone's name on it felt like the opening sequence in Space Balls where the ship just keeps going and going.

Bleh. I hate to be such a downer but every new thing I've learned about this movie make me want to see it less.

 

[Fletch]

I am but a small portion of the fanbase, but I have zero wood for this Avengers movie.

I am really right there with you. Part of me thinks that I should just shut up about it and let the excited people share their excitement, but most of me is an absolute curmudgeon who can't stop lamenting what I could have had.

I mean, of course I'm going to see it. And there's always a chance they'll do something unforseen that will just blow me away, but my track record with Phase 5 makes me skeptical.

 

[yojoebro82]

I am but a small portion of the fanbase, but I have zero wood for this Avengers movie.

I wish I could disagree.......but I can't. Had there been zero Marvel movies since Endgame I'd have been a lot more excited. But there have been many. And many just seemed like filler that didn't need to happen at all.

I don't understand bringing back RDJ at all, much less as Doom (from a narrative angle, I get that they decided to hard pivot away from Kang instead of just recasting him which would have been simpler and cheaper).

My pessimistic side says they want "sure thing" box office draw for a character they missed the mark on twice already and this is the "Hey I know this" nostalgia bait. I'm hoping against hope there is some ingenious narrative reason for this that will all become clear in the story and make me say, "Welp, I was wrong, this was a great move, I should never have doubted Fegie".

I think the multiverse angle has largely been a neat concept without many good stories attached to it and I'm not hopeful this will break the trend.

Both Marvel and DC need to walk away from the Multiverse. Whether you're talking movies or comics, it's just used as a "do whatever you want and get away with it" McMuffin.

And I'm really, *really* not excited by wheeling out yet more aging legacy actors from previous Marvel movie incarnations. It feels like an increasingly desperate bid to have nostalgia in place of decent writing. Plus just too many goddamn characters. The initial teaser of all the chairs with everyone's name on it felt like the opening sequence in Space Balls where the ship just keeps going and going.

I don't know how this doesn't turn into a clusterfuck. And you know they haven't even told us about ALL the actors yet. I'm sure there are a few surprises. Famke Jansen swears up and down she's not in it.........yeah, just like Andrew Garfield (No Way Home), Dafne Keen (DP/Wolvie), etc.....

 

[Damien]

I am but a small portion of the fanbase, but I have zero wood for this Avengers movie. I don't understand bringing back RDJ at all, much less as Doom (from a narrative angle, I get that they decided to hard pivot away from Kang instead of just recasting him which would have been simpler and cheaper). I think the multiverse angle has largely been a neat concept without many good stories attached to it and I'm not hopeful this will break the trend. And I'm really, *really* not excited by wheeling out yet more aging legacy actors from previous Marvel movie incarnations. It feels like an increasingly desperate bid to have nostalgia in place of decent writing. Plus just too many goddamn characters. The initial teaser of all the chairs with everyone's name on it felt like the opening sequence in Space Balls where the ship just keeps going and going.

Bleh. I hate to be such a downer but every new thing I've learned about this movie make me want to see it less.

Yep. The RDJ thing is utterly baffling to me. Even if they pull it off and they make it make sense, it will always be something where it's obvious they CAST it first and then figured out why later, and I hate it. Recasting Kang shouldn't even be a debate. Just do it and move on. Actors should not be sacred to a project.

And the legacy characters/actors thing I feel in my bones. I'm so sick of it. I want someone to be in charge that says 'we're going to tell a story with X and Y characters and then move on to different characters.' I love Wolverine, but I don't need to see Hugh Jackman pop up in every other Marvel project until he's 96 years old. That's insanity.

 

[joshsquash729]

My enthusiasm for Doomsday is oddly middling at the moment. I'm sure that'll change once I see a trailer, but right now it still feels like sort of an idea more than an actual movie. Like I've said before, it felt like the prior Avengers movies all were the climax/payoff to a story that had been building and slowly coming together, whereas this still feels disjointed because of how connective threads there were, and the one major one was all but abandoned.

It's also still a year away, and we have another Marvel movie coming before it, so it feels a bit odd to get excited for something so far out that we know nothing about. I think I'm mostly excited just to see some of those characters again that we haven't in a while- Gambit, Fox-Men, Shang-Chi, etc.

 

[fac]

RUMOR has it that the the title of this upcoming movie is "Disclosure" and that it will tie into the Spielberg classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Sequel? Prequel? No one knows.

Roy Neary did leave in the ship in the end with some humans, so he or his offspring could come back, and the kid (Barry) would be an adult now. But I would be disappointed if they revisited it to be honest, especially given how positive the first film was about the aliens being apparently good...

 

[JakeEkiss]

I mean, of course I'm going to see it.

Don't. I'm absolutely serious. Don't do it. You will have a better time staying at home doing literally anything else. I stopped going to these things out of habit int he mid 2010's and it's been the best decision I ever made regarding franchise stuff. There has never been one, not one, since then that was better than the trailer led me to believe, and all of them that I saw later via streaming or whatever on someone's recommendation were wasted time.

We nerds do this thing, this one quote comes up so often "of course I'll still see/buy/read it" when we know, more than anything else, it won't satisfy us. It's the reason we say this quote. It's acknowledging we know we won't like it. Trust your instinct. You know what you like and you know this won't be it. Let a million other nerds who don't have self control waste their money on it.

My pessimistic side says they want "sure thing" box office draw for a character they missed the mark on twice already and this is the "Hey I know this" nostalgia bait.

Oh, absolutely. That's a huge part of it. They got scared off Kang, they saw the other movies underperforming and they decided to smash the "remember when" button a thousand times hoping each hit of the button would equate to a billion dollars.

I'm hoping against hope there is some ingenious narrative reason for this that will all become clear in the story and make me say, "Welp, I was wrong, this was a great move, I should never have doubted Fegie".

This universe outgrew Fegie's ability to adequately steer it before Endgame even released. And after it has been completely scattershot. Nobody knows which way is up.

I'm sure there are a few surprises.

Oh sure. I'm certain Hugh Jackman's coming and the spider's men and probably even a digital Stan Lee (it's only a matter of time if not).

Recasting Kang shouldn't even be a debate. Just do it and move on. Actors should not be sacred to a project.

For fucking real. And it's not like they didn't do itbefore. Thanos, War Machine (remember when it was the dude who thinks 1x0 isn't 0, good times), Hulk, Red Skull...

And I'll be honest, though I liked that dude in Lovecraft Country fine, his Kang wasn't blowing me away anyway. You're telling me you couldn't find one other good black actor under 35? Bullshit. Get the fuck outta here with that noise. They set up the whole multiverse just to give us Kang, and then don't recast the easiest character in the whole MCU to recast given his backstory.

And the legacy characters/actors thing I feel in my bones. I'm so sick of it. I want someone to be in charge that says 'we're going to tell a story with X and Y characters and then move on to different characters.' I love Wolverine, but I don't need to see Hugh Jackman pop up in every other Marvel project until he's 96 years old. That's insanity.

It really just feels like the franchise version of Weekend at Bernie's. Marionetting the decaying bodies of these old actors, these old characters. And for no good reason. There's no plot there talking about the realities of aging and how it affects these characters. We got exactly one of those films with Logan and it more or less said it all. It was also the last time I cared about Jackverine being in a movie (DP v Wolverine was not great, just aggressively manipulative).

 

[Chooch555]

I don't think recasting Kang was the whole reason they abandoned ship though. The character didn't seem to resonate with audiences as a legit big bad so the legal troubles were an excuse to pivot.

 

[JakeEkiss]

The character didn't seem to resonate with audiences as a legit big bad so the legal troubles were an excuse to pivot.

Largely based on one movie that they knew was badly written and sort of on a TV show that a fraction of the total MCU audience actually watched. It's cowardly c-suite shit. Ignore the previous one and craft a new version, the Kangiest Kang or whatever. You'd be recasting him anyway and he's his own walking time paradox. They totally reinvent Thanos's goals between films and nobody seemed to notice or care.

They assume the audience is fine being yanked around into the old movie museum every instalment now, it's not like that sort of edit would be any more egregious.

 

[joshsquash729]

Yeah, I don't necessarily think not connecting was the reason they pivoted. I wouldn't say anyone really "connected" with Thanos in his first couple post-credits scenes. But they had a story they were building toward, a story they had faith in, and stuck with it, knowing that the audience would connect eventually, and they did. I'm sure the same would've happened with Kang. What better time to check back in with a villain than when they get their ass handed to them by the hero? When they're at their most angry and bloodthirsty? Like Jake said- Kang is perhaps the easiest character to recast, given that he has endless variants. As good an actor as Majors was, it would've been a really exciting boost for the career of any up-and-coming young black actor to get cast in the role, and it's such a shame they didn't continue with it.

 

[yojoebro82]

Yep. The RDJ thing is utterly baffling to me. Even if they pull it off and they make it make sense, it will always be something where it's obvious they CAST it first and then figured out why later, and I hate it. Recasting Kang shouldn't even be a debate. Just do it and move on. Actors should not be sacred to a project.

When I saw the comic con footage of RDJ in green robes taking off the Doom mask, I sat at my screen and thought......."Um.......????" Imagine being in attendance at the thing and being obligated to cheer. I wouldn't have been able to do it because I'd be trying to process what I'm seeing. Is it something I SHOULD be cheering for? I still don't know.

I can't speak as much to Kang because when he was being introduced I was tapping out of MCU stuff little by little. Never saw Quantumania or Loki season 2 or a host of others that were released in phase whatever through today. I will say NOT recasting T'Chala was one of the biggest missteps in the franchise. That character still had plenty of road to tread and Shuri does not hold my interest as a main character. A capable, well-picked actor would have done plenty of justice to Boseman. Don't be afraid of the recast, MCU. Same goes for if you're dead-set on doing a story with character but your actor is aging (Star Wars), don't do those deep fake CGI constructions. Noting takes me out of the movie faster than staring at it trying to identify what's off about it (and there is always something). Get another damn human being in the roll, if they are good the audience will accept them whether it's Black Panther or Spock or Luke Skywalker.