paqart

That detail could have been modified. It wasn't that interesting to me as it was. If it had to stay, then Heimdall's skin tone could have been explained as a dark tan after getting too close to a star during an infant trip through the Rainbow Bridge or something.

No, but I'm using an analogy. I am comparing something that shall not be named but is offensive to an offensive paint job on a race car. The offensive thing in the film is not a paint job or a color.

I like Elba as Heimdall also. However, if I was writing the script and was told I had to put a black actor in a lead role, I would have made him Loki, not Heimdall. The reason is that Loki is the adopted brother of Thor and is supposed to be another race.

You and others are talking about problems in the MCU as if the paint job on a race car has a significant impact on its Daytona 500 performance. The paint job might have an impact on box office, provided it is cool enough/offensive enough, but it has nothing to do with the speed/performance of the vehicle. I understand it must be incomprehensible that the majority of the original MCU audience, not to be confused with the current MCU audience, doesn't want to have anything to do with the current MCU, but that is how it is. The offensive characteristics may seem small, but they aren't. Imagine your kid brings a girlfriend/boyfriend home to meet you and they track mud into the house. Will you be thinking about it all dinner long? I would. It's the same with the MCU.

Do you have a relevant point? Or are you simply illustrating the reason why you don't understand the failure of Marvel/Disney?

The next bomb is waiting in the wings: https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2023/11/12/disneys-new-captain-america-movie-on-the-verge-of-crashing-and-burning-n4923841

The problem with the explanation you provide is that it assumes that the appeal of MCU movies is related to genre, formula, and characters. Those are the superficial trappings of the movies but all are a distraction from what made the films attractive in the first place, and what led to the recent spate of failing or under-performing films. In reverse order: Characters: if this was the initial appeal, none of the films would have been as successful as they were. Compare the MCU to earlier superhero movies. Some were successful, some not, and at differing levels for sequels (see Superman or Spider-Man). The MCU films had to reach beyond the characters to appeal to the audience they captured. They did this with the stories, which were about morals in conflict. Iron Man: betrayal, Thor: obedience, Captain America: loyalty, Doctor Strange: humility. Later films were about getting from point A to point B, with a few scrapes in between. Formula: The MCU "formula" of putting universal themes and morals center stage worked fine for about twenty movies in a row. If they hadn't changed the formula, they have continued to enjoy the same level of success. Genre: Every supposedly dead genre is always one good movie away from being resuscitated. Witness Star Wars and how it reinvigorated sci-fi. You'd be surprised how many people don't like to eat poisoned food, no matter how minute the quantity. I readily admit that the proportion of offensive to perfectly acceptable moments in recent MCU films is maybe 1% of the screen time, but that's enough to make me not want to sit there waiting for that one percent to reveal itself. I like roller coasters, but wouldn't ride them at all if I knew that each ride would result in a random small cut to my body somewhere. Who needs the hassle?

She-Hulk, Bishop, and Ms. Marvel are fine, but the rest not so much. However, having the Falcon in there makes it look like a harem, and that isn't a good look.

Oh brother. Fine, you either do not understand or refuse to admit you do understand.

Is there a reason you wrote this? Are you trying to be amusing, or just careless? The point is that Germans were relentlessly caricatured by western media from about 1940 through at least the 1970's. This doesn't imply anything about apple strudel or persuasion thresholds. It simply fails to impart an alternate view. Therefore, anything different, particularly something that is the opposite of the caricature, would naturally be interesting. For instance, North Korean defectors are often surprised by how much food exists in other countries, including America. They were taught to be thankful they had food during their famine because Americans had less. This is how propaganda works.

Sorry, that would be a way to get banned. Speaking of which, that only works one way. You can write what you like, but I can't.

You are having a hard time understanding this. Perhaps I haven't been clear. I'll try again, but this time using completely generic stand-in words so that the conversation doesn't get muddled with irrelevant associations. We have two groups, "Square" and "Circle." 50,000,000 people belong to the Square group. 1,000,000 people are in the Circle group. 100,000 people belong to both groups. Movies made for the Square group are very successful. Movies made for the Circle group are low budget and often unsuccessful. Taking a movie franchise from the Square group and converting it to a Circle movie limits it's Square audience, while increasing its Circle audience. The maximum size of the Circle Audience is less than the Square audience. Therefore, if Square movies are modified to appeal to the Circle audience, their makers should expect significantly lower sales. In other words, I couldn't care less which groups are represented, if at all, or done in a sympathetic or appropriate way. They can all be represented or none at all, or all wrong. That isn't relevant to a discussion of problems with recent Disney/MCU films. I don't watch football. Never have, don't intend to start. I'm just not interested. The people in the game can do whatever they want and it wouldn't matter to me and I wouldn't matter to them. That wasn't my attitude to Disney until about five years ago. Now, it is my attitude to Disney, and Marvel, DC, and a number of other companies. They have made it clear they don't want my business. I am no hurry to give it to them regardless. As far as I am concerned, those companies are doing everything they can to reduce the size of their own businesses and the industry itself. My guess is that independent publishers will take over before long because they are making comics their readers enjoy. The same for film studios. More and more independents are coming out with fantastic low budget successes that beat the pants off of bigger budget releases, both in box office and profit. So, it is true I don't like certain messages in entertainment. I find it offensive. You seem to like the very things I don't like. That is not the issue. I don't have to like the same material you like, and it is annoying to see the material I like disappear from the market. If I was part of the niche market, it would be a sound decision to drop customers like me so that the larger audience is happy. However, I'm not in the niche group. Therefore, it is not a sound business decision to write off the previous audience to usher in a new but significantly smaller one. The only way that would make sense is if the goal was to convert people like me into becoming members of the niche group. And that is where it gets offensive, because that feels like coercion.

No question about it. I'm not making any effort to hide that fact, so it isn't a particularly novel observation. There is another way to look at the princess movies btw, and it is the way they were likely viewed at the time they came out. Women who married and took care of the household were not looked down upon, and many (men and women) recognized the real value they contributed to society. This included essential support to the husband's workplace success, often included chores that are not much different from what people today are paid to do. The difference is that as part of a household, a woman had more freedom in some ways than they do today, where they exist at the beck and call of an ever-changing stream of corporate bosses. Not all women want to give up on a family or a household to pursue economic triumphs outside the family in a commercial workspace. Some hate the idea of doing that, even those educated in top universities . I know, because I married one. The workplace isn't necessarily a paradise for women freed from household "drudgery", and describing it that way is an insult to every woman who genuinely enjoyed raising a family, of whom there are many. As for Native Americans, you are shifting the topic. This thread isn't about which marginalized or misrepresented groups absolutely must have movies made about them, it's about movies that 1) don't appeal to their previous audience, thus resulting in low ticket sales, and 2) a new version of inclusion that is just as fake as what it is trying to replace. I grew up with the Lone Ranger and Tonto on TV. I loved the show, and genuinely admired Tonto. He wasn't a lesser man because his role was secondary to the Lone Ranger. More importantly, I later learned that the version of American Indian life found in film and TV was false. Later, I read books written by ethnographers, like George Catlin, who lived with Native American tribes in the early 1800's. Caitlin's portrayal was self-consciously sympathetic, but it was nothing like what we see, or have ever seen, in popular entertainment. Based on those works, early Native American tribes ran the gamut from Hamas/ISIS levels of savagery all the way up to completely peaceful monks that we hear about in the Himalayan mountains. Our pop culture has blended these unrealistically, while removing the most negative traits, to create more sympathetic portrayals. My opinion, both are wrong. That said, sometimes the most unexpected movies are the most realistic. For instance, based on my reading of the relevant non-fiction literature on the subject, "The Exorcist" is the most realistic paranormal thriller ever made. Weirdly enough, "Ghost" is a distant second. But again, realism isn't the issue. The issue is appeal. There are many completely unrealistic movies that are nevertheless engaging. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Doctor Strange are all examples of appealing but unrealistic movies. Realism isn't required to make something interesting or appealing. The most realistic film I've ever seen is "Tora! Tora! Tora!" about the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is an excellent movie, but not all films have to be like that. You seem to think that the change of narrative allows a different perspective into modern films. That is true. Again, it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I, and many others, don't like the change. It is also relevant that the number of people who have rejected the change is greater than the number of people who embrace it. That is fine, but not for movies that cost $150 million to produce. If they reduced the budgets to around $30 million, they might have enough of an audience to make a profit. Or, Disney could make this new type of movie as charity projects by funding them with other movies marketed to the original MCU audience. Disney could have two brands, MCU, and MCYOU. Branded that way, customers like myself wouldn't avoid everything made by Disney, but would make a bee line for the MCU material. Other people, perhaps yourself, would avoid the material you find offensive by patronizing the MCYOU instead. If this was done, the money that went into the MCU might even be enough to fully subsidize the MCYOU movies so that they could operate at a loss without harming the bottom line. Putting everything into the same basket does hurt the bottom line, or changing the fare from MCU to MCYOU, because the existing market is disenfranchised. It's like trading gold bars for a handful of fake magic beans: not a good trade.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/11/13/brie-larsons-the-marvels-bombs-at-the-box-office-with-worst-opening-weekend-in-mcu-history/ The latest on The Marvels.

Agreed. In "Father knows best", there is what looks like content inspired by the type of things we see today, but it is disguised in the friendly trappings of the series. "Some like it Hot" takes on a completely different meaning today than when it was released. At the time, it was sold as a zany comedy, but today looks like a toe in the water to see if the filmmakers could get away with it. The content of the 1970's is played for laughs and is always genial, non-threatening. By the 1990's, with Law & Order, it started getting less genial, more confrontational. Now, it is indeed "in your face" and very unpleasant. It seems to me like someone has replaced my ravioli with rusted screws and melted plastic. I'm supposed to like it, but no thanks.

And PS: Why was Loki, the adopted brother of Thor, played by Tom Hiddleston instead of Idris Elba? Why make Heimdall African/Norse when there is an adopted brother from another race in the script?

Disappointing, but true. In an effort to find entertainment without the type of odious messaging that fills modern entertainment products, I have stepped back through the decades, trying to find something I can enjoy. You are right that messaging is always present, but the type of messaging that dominates does change over time. The current focus is more flagrant today, but can be found as far back as Father Knows Best in the 1950's, or even earlier in films. In less disguised form, modern themes can be found in Barney Miller from the mid-1970's, M*A*S*H, That Girl!, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and many others. The first TV series I have been able to find that seems mostly neutral, in direct reverse chronological order from today, is Perry Mason. The actors themselves would have fit in with today's crowd, but the scripts are not filled with the characteristics that make me stop the playback and look for something else. Films have more variety in messages, making it easier to find something that appeals, even in more modern films. In any given year, there are usually a few films that lack the ideological poison de jour. However, to find a large number of American films that would look foreign by contemporary standards, you'd have to go back to the early 1950's or 1940's. Ironically, the early 1930's and 1920's start looking more "modern" by today's standards. A biography of producer Irving Thalberg does a good job explaining why. It's because the people in the business of making films have always been a similar type with few exceptions. They have always wanted to make the kind of movie we see today, though I doubt they wanted it built into their bylaws. The new rule that to be eligible for nomination in the Academy Awards, you must have a certain diverse set of characters, would likely have been rejected by even the most libertine producer in the 1930's. Speaking for myself, that rule would inspire me to do the opposite, and not have a diverse cast until the rule was rescinded. The cast should be whatever the script demands, and the script should contain what the story requires. A sign of bad writing is the inclusion of unnecessary or distracting story elements. The Oscar rule ensures that movies are full of such distractions, and consequently, poor writing. One of the few situations I can think of where the rule is a natural fit for the story, is a movie about how dumb the rule is. Another would be a film centered on a situation where demographics tend to mix, like a heist at the DMV or a big city restaurant. Changing the race of mythological Norse characters is strange and distracting unless the casting and script are perfect. Anything short of that is an unnecessary and unwanted distraction.

Are you intending to convey some kind of message with this sarcasm?

That made me think of Forrest Gump, The Passion, and The Sound of Freedom. All three had no cowbell, did very well, and were shunned by the studios. You may argue about Forrest Gump, but that would have to be based on the narrative about the film that started after it was nominated for, and won, a lot of Academy Awards. When it came out, it had a Rotten Tomatoes score (or something like it, on a 100 point scale) of about 50. The critics hated Gump. The reason was that the movie was "an unbelievable rags to riches story about a dumb guy who could never have been as successful as portrayed in the film." All of the critics missed the fact that the movie was actually about "what love is." They panned the movie right up until it won the Oscars. After that, the original reviews disappeared overnight and its score shot up to 98 or so. My guess is that the real reason the critics didn't like it is that Gump didn't fit their preconceived notion of what a man like that was supposed to be, or what was allowed for his future. Robert Zemeckis directed Gump, so it did have studio backing, unlike the other two. If you were reading the original stories about the movie shortly after it came out, you would have had a totally different impression of critic's reaction to it. Each of the three movies just mentioned, went against Hollywood's conventional wisdom and did well because of it. Hollywood, it turns out, may be the dullest pencil in the drawer.

The way they work remind me of the nega-bands that caused Captain Marvel (Mar-vell, not Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel) to switch places with Rick Jones. Are they like that?

Thanks for reminding me of Wakanda Forever. I completely forgot that movie existed. It's a shame, because I have always liked the Namor character, but was disappointed in the film. With any luck the "Disney period" of MCU movie will be a blip in an otherwise stellar record, like assistant editor's month. Marvel is undoubtedly worth less now, thanks to Disney's efforts, and can be bought by someone who can restore the brand to its former glory. Elon? Want to buy some superheroes?

Allow me to clarify. After a steady diet of Hogan's Heroes and many other TV and films with WWII themes, I had never seen a German who was not abrasive. Every portrayal was negative. It isn't that I expected them to be bad people, as you suggest (a ridiculous notion, btw) but that I didn't expect them to be the exact opposite. The Germans I met were gracious to a degree I had until then rarely encountered. The contrast was with how they were portrayed in American filmed entertainment, which until then provided my only frame of reference. In future, you may want to hesitate before engaging in mockery.

When I lived in the Netherlands, we had a fantastic theater in town. It took fifteen minutes to ride over on my bike. I loved going there for movies, often with colleagues, students, and family. The MCU films were my favorites. I wanted three movies a year but I don't think they were doing that yet when I moved to the US.

When I lived in Europe, I had several German colleagues and students. They were more gracious and polite than any other group . Then I went to Tokyo and Yokohama for a conference, and the Japanese, likewise, were extremely courteous. After seeing dozens of WWII movies, I didn't expect either, but that is what I experienced. The same was true of my experience working for the Japanese game studio Square.

That's like saying you liked it better than Plan 9 from outer space.