THE MARVELS starring Brie Larson, Iman Vellani and Teyonna Parris (2023) 9 9

[Bosco685]

IGN says the film is a triumph and 8 (Great)

[jcjames]

On 11/9/2023 at 1:51 PM, Bosco685 said:

It is sounding like Ms. Marvel was the big hit in this movie. Good on that actress.

If so, that's good. 

The thing that repels me from anything with Brie Larson is Brie Larson. Can't stand her. It's visceral.

I get the same repulsion from anything featuring Kevin Costner, Jack Black or Pete Davidson. 

Some actors just turn my stomach. Brie Larson is one. 

[Bosco685]

 

[VintageComics]

Man, typing in well thought out posts and losing them is SO EFFING TIRING. 

[Buzzetta]

On 11/9/2023 at 1:24 PM, VintageComics said:

A little philosophy, psychiatry and biology here (but fully related to the MCU):

Can I bring up something on this post I made because I've inadvertently made a point to myself without realizing it.

Is there a single comic book TEAM in comic history that has overshadowed it's most popular, individual member? Justice League. Fantastic Four. Challengers. Justice Society. Sinister Six. Suicide Squad. X-men. No TEAM will ever be as popular as a SINGLE character. 

The reason for this is that humans are wired this way. When a baby is born, it doesn't care who the neighborhood is. Or who lives in the home. They (generally speaking) singularly focus on the Mother first, because that's the only person they know. It's the first person they see after being born.

It's definitely the first person they've heard, smelt, tasted, felt or touched. It's literally their universe.

So it stands to reason that neurologically, they're wired to focus on this person first. I'm not a neurologist but this seems to be a pattern across all nature, isn't it?

So we seem to have a natural, primal disposition to elevate one person over another and certainly one person over a team. 

----------------------------------

The reason I bring all that up is to point out that what Disney / Marvel has been doing is trying to make the team more popular to the masses than the individuals in much the same way Alan Moore did with Watchmen.

The way Moore did it was that he quite literally engineered the popularity out of the characters by recycling old characters or archetypes, but he changed their identities / abilities so that they were no longer recognizable to what we bonded with. 

Moore's many characters are a semblance of something we all know and understand but not the actual thing we recognize from childhood. By doing this, you're FORCED to overlook the individuals and to accept the team as a whole because the individuals are not as interesting anymore. 

It's a testimony to the genius of Alan Moore, who was so far ahead of his time he was in a different galaxy. 

------------------------------------

I believe this is what Disney is doing today. 

What they're doing is taking the traits that made traditional Superheros what they were - the masculine strength, the feminine energy, the traditional roles, good vs evil and they are engineering these things out of the characters to make the team ideologically more appealing than the individuals.

They are quite literally engineering the individuality out of the characters and homogenizing them into a team, and I think this is what riles people up about the new direction of the MCU. 

They're taking the characters that we have emotional attachments to, who hold archetypal roles in our lives (and have for millions of years quite frankly) and they're trying to reinginner what you're supposed to like, and feel and expect. They are removing the things we have emotional attachments to without our permission.

So why does this rile people up? Well, it goes against natural precedent and how human progress happens over time. 

Like, you can't try to convince a newborn with external force or coercion to be more bonded with it's father than with it's mother. That bonding is innate and involuntary. By forcing that child to separate from mom and bond with dad, you are actually creating problematic conditions that will negatively affect that child. 

 

And I think that explains the root cause of why people are reacting the way they do about the direction of the MCU. 

They are trying to get people to accept things that don't really feel natural. It's actually feels like a form of social engineering. 

It would be like if I wanted everyone to make Batman their favorite character but some people don't like Batman. 

Forcing them to like Batman will only make them like Batman less. But if I tell a really good Batman story, well then everyone will love Batman again. 

So just tell the darn Batman story. That's all people want. 

Does anyone disagree?

I think the answer to this is whether or not the character can support a solo effort. 

Fantastic Four was always about "family".    It was the story of the Richards, the Storms, and the Grimms.  Even when Sue was pregnant or Thing was off world, they were mentioned because at it's core... cue Vin Diesel, "Family".  Does, the Fantastic Four work without any one of the core members?  They have tried giving Torch his own run and Thing... but they always bring them back to the Fantastic Four.  FF as a team, at least to me, is greater than any single one of the characters. The characters do not really exist well for long periods outside of the team. 

The X-Men seem to originally have been written this way until issue 94.  Then eventually later in the run, all bets are off and characters come and go and the team is interchangeable.  Wolverine becomes popular and overshadows the team, but originally it seems he was merely a teammate.  As the narrative of the X-Men continue, Wolverine is a character that at this point in time is more important than the X-Men

Avengers is difficult. I think within the first few years of Avengers,  the team becomes more important than the individuals as players are rotated in and out of the lineup.  However, this seems to flip flop over the ages.  Can you really have an Avengers without Captain America or Iron Man at this point for a long period of time?  Marvel has done it, but they always go back to one or both of them.  The Comic Series of Civil War was compelling in that we see the different philosophies between Tony and Steve.  Tony and Steve have become more important than the team at this point in time.

 

[Bosco685]

Emergency Awesome normally stays positive about comic book films. So he stays levelheaded.

 

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:07 PM, Buzzetta said:

Avengers is difficult. I think within the first few years of Avengers,  the team becomes more important than the individuals as players are rotated in and out of the lineup.  However, this seems to flip flop over the ages.  Can you really have an Avengers without Captain America or Iron Man at this point for a long period of time?  Marvel has done it, but they always go back to one or both of them.  The Comic Series of Civil War was compelling in that we see the different philosophies between Tony and Steve.  Tony and Steve have become more important than the team at this point in time.

The Civil War arc is actually (and ironically) when people started noticing that Disney was moving from just storytelling to messaging. 

The timing seems to coincide with social / cultural change and post Avengers: Civil War there is a definite delineation between the two sides in the story telling. 

And I don't think it's a co-incidence that Tony Stark was initially vilified, or at least made to be polarising in Civil War the way he was, and ultimately sacrificed in End Game.

Maybe I'm overthinking it but it's hard to unsee once you see it. 

--------

Regarding the philosophies behind the different Marvel teams, that's a great observation. 

The story telling genius continues to come out as you dig deeper and Marvel had very different formulas for the 3 different teams. 

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:22 PM, VintageComics said:

The Civil War arc is actually (and ironically) when people started noticing that Disney was moving from just storytelling to messaging. 

The timing seems to coincide with social / cultural change and post Avengers: Civil War there is a definite delineation between the two sides in the story telling. 

And I don't think it's a co-incidence that Tony Stark was initially vilified, or at least made to be polarising in Civil War the way he was, and ultimately sacrificed in End Game.

Maybe I'm overthinking it but it's hard to unsee once you see it. 

--------

Regarding the philosophies behind the different Marvel teams, that's a great observation. 

The story telling genius continues to come out as you dig deeper and Marvel had very different formulas for the 3 different teams. 

I can tell you the exact moment when I first noticed messaging in the MCU. It was when, in Civil War, Stark is confronted by a woman about her son, who died in Sokovia. That scene ruined the entire movie for me, and made me suspicious of all subsequent releases. Some lived up to the suspicion (Ragnarok) others were free of taint (Doctor Strange), but the general trend was in the direction taken by Civil War.

Edited November 9, 2023 by paqart

[namisgr]

Ya, because there was no messaging in, say, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.  And movies haven't had points of view since, say, their inception.    

Edited November 9, 2023 by namisgr

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:38 PM, paqart said:

I can tell you the exact moment when I first noticed messaging in the MCU. It was when, in Civil War, Stark is confronted by a woman about her son, who died in Sokovia. That scene ruined the entire movie for me, and made me suspicious of all subsequent releases. Some lived up to the suspicion (Ragnarok) others were free of taint (Doctor Strange), but the general trend was in the direction taken by Civil War.

Yup. I noticed that moment as well in theater and it actually created a moment within myself. I had to think about it deeply.

What is most interesting to note is that they pitted Iron Man and Cap against each other. Like, they could have pitted Scarlett Witch against Cap, or Vision against Iron Man but no, it had to be Captain America vs Iron Man. That made it blatant and overt.  

On 11/9/2023 at 4:44 PM, namisgr said:

Ya, because there was no messaging in, say, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.    

Or in avatars. 

Everyone is messaging something. Some messages are just more valid than others. 

The intent and motivation BEHIND the message is more important than the message itself, because the message fades but the intent is what drives the messenger. Intent is everything. 

Edited November 9, 2023 by VintageComics

[Bosco685]

Matt Ramos is Mister MCU when it comes to social media. Interesting what he has to share.

 

[VintageComics]

On 11/9/2023 at 2:10 PM, paqart said:

Funny you should ask. There was a very brief time in my life when I attended college and didn't buy comics. That was when Frank Miller was introduced to the world. By the time I got back into comics, he was moving into film with his script for Robocop. I am certainly aware of his work and did become interested in it as back issues. At first, he was described to me as a great artist. I later came to the conclusion he was a much better writer than artist. However, he had his brilliant moments as an artist, like the Elektra graphic novel, Ronin, and the Sin City stories. That said, the reason I don't talk about him much is that his writing is so sadistic that I don't like thinking about the stories, let alone reading them. It is the same problem I have with most of Kirby's Fourth World stories. Between Desaad, Darkseid, and Granny Goodness, there's enough sadism for a new Netflix original series. 

Very interesting points. 

This post is long and waxes philosophical but I think you bring up a great point that's worth discussing. 

One of my favorite things about Miller's work is the sadistic, dark, depraved world he has wrapped around every story. It's not that I love sadism. I hate it, but I consider facing darkness a necessary evil for people to both grow personally themselves and to allow good to flourish in general. 

In fact, I'm a big believer in the Biblical phrase "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it", meaning I genuinely believe in real life that light is stronger than dark and good is stronger than evil. It's why I've come to believe that I never need to worry, because the good will always win eventually. 

In short, it's CONTRAST between light and dark that makes the light that much greater and powerful. 

One of the primary ways we are able to perceive ANYTHING, whether it's physical or psychological, is through contrast. 

For example, you can't see ANYTHING unless there are contrasting colors between light and dark. If everything is light or dark, you're basically blind. 

You can't FEEL anything unless there are contrasting feelings. To dig a little deeper, you can't even understand what it's been like to be hurt unless you've been hurt yourself. It's that contrast between feeling say, pain and no pain that helps us understand, feel and empathize with others. For example, if you have no idea what it's like to be cheated on, you may never be able to empathise with someone who has been cheated on, but you will DEFINITELY know what it feels like once it happens to you. Your brain unlocks "mirror neurons" that reflect that feeling back to you once it happens. After that moment, you can no longer forget what it felt like, and then you can FULLY UNDERSTAND and EMPATHISE with someone else who has been cheated on. 

As painful as these thing are to see and feel, they're necessary for personal growth, and this is why the more pain people experience, the more empathetic they are toward others - Qualifier: If they have not allowed that pain to overtake or deprave themselves. Because it CAN go the other way. That pain can cause depravity. It always matters what you do with it and how you handle it. 

That's where the Amor Fati principle I live by came in. I got tired of just confronting pain and decided to use it for my own benefit rather than it have it's way with me, and it's made all the difference in the world. 

Now imagine removing all the pain, darkness, depravity and sadism from your life that was sent to teach you how to overcome it? People would never grow, never learn, never expand their understand or empathy. We'd all be whitewashed zombies with no feelings. 

I learned all of this because of my upbringing. I was raised in an extremely cult-like society that was so isolated from reality and so depraved that things like substance abuse, child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse, suicides are commonplace. In my immediate family, I've had a sibling commit suicide, another attempt it, I have a sibling living on the streets that is outcast from our family, my dad died during a liver transplant necessitated by alcohol abuse. That is literally half my family. 

It's about as depraved as a Frank Miller story arc, right?

But I chose not to succumb to the darkness and rather grow out of it towards the light.

And the only way to grow toward the light is away from the darkness.

And to grow away from the darkness, I needed to be aware of the darkness and recognize it for what it is. 

And to be able to recognize it, I needed to FACE it head on. That means that I, myself need to be aware AND ADMIT that I could be that depraved person if I made the wrong choices.

In effect, you or I could become the worst person in the world if we make the wrong choices. 

This formula will vary in scope for most, but the underlying principles are the same for every person because we're all wired in the same way as far as our physiology and psyche works. 

This meme was me and still is. I had to accept that I was wrong and in darkness before I could see where the light was coming from... so bring on the darkness, because the more darkness there is, the more light there will be to eradicate it. 

That's my take on Frank Miller.

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by VintageComics

[jsilverjanet]

On 11/9/2023 at 2:42 PM, Bosco685 said:

Credits scenes explained

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

@fastballspecial

[jsilverjanet]

after seeing what happens in the mid credits and credits scene, i think I'm curious about where this is going

there maybe some hope for the mcu

[paqart]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:44 PM, namisgr said:

Ya, because there was no messaging in, say, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.  And movies haven't had points of view since, say, their inception.    

"Messaging that annoys me". Happy?

[Buzzetta]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:22 PM, VintageComics said:

The Civil War arc is actually (and ironically) when people started noticing that Disney was moving from just storytelling to messaging. 

The timing seems to coincide with social / cultural change and post Avengers: Civil War there is a definite delineation between the two sides in the story telling. 

And I don't think it's a co-incidence that Tony Stark was initially vilified, or at least made to be polarising in Civil War the way he was, and ultimately sacrificed in End Game.

Maybe I'm overthinking it but it's hard to unsee once you see it. 

--------

Regarding the philosophies behind the different Marvel teams, that's a great observation. 

The story telling genius continues to come out as you dig deeper and Marvel had very different formulas for the 3 different teams. 

I do believe you are overthinking it.  

I found Civil War I to be thought provoking and a nice reprieve from the constant villain of the day, the soap opera, or how two heroes can learn to work together to defeat the common threat.  Civil War felt more like a Star Trek storyline to be honest.

 

As far the storytelling of the three teams.  I believe that FF and Avengers were by design, while X-Men was more of a chaotic. throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.  There really does not seem to be any real direction for the property as evidenced the silver age reprint time period of the books.   I've been told, (and I do not know if this was true or not) that Claremont is going to get away with what he did in his initial run because Marvel did not really care, and anything was better that nothing when it came to the property.  To what extend of that is true or not is known by the hardcore X-Men historians. 

[1950's war comics]

On 11/9/2023 at 8:36 AM, paqart said:

Not sure this is an issue of "best" or "worst." For instance, by an objective craftsmanship standard, the first Thor movie may have had the weakest CG of the entire MCU. It had other faults that in my opinion would force it to be ranked lower than Ragnarok. However, I much prefer Thor to Ragnarok. The reason is that I enjoyed the Shakespearean moments with Odin and Thor's genial personality. Captain Marvel was a good film, and I agree, better than it's made out to be by detractors. However, I don't think of it as a more appealing film than its technically weaker siblings in the MCU. 

Overall, the MCU films maintain a very consistent high standard for craft. It is very difficult to credibly criticize any of them for quality flaws. What criticisms I've read are weak tea compared to what can be said of other films. Who remembers the scene in T2, where the T-1000 grabs the bumper of a car as it speeds out of the psychiatric hospital and it looks like a store mannequin wired to the bumper?

The issue with Marvel, as I see it, never has anything to do with quality. The issue is content. Is it appealing or not? Think of it this way: we all have our favorite comic book artists. How many of us are aware of comics drawn by our favorites that we have no interest in? I have quite a few artists that I normally like that fit into that category. My favorite artist is Carl Barks, but I have zero interest in his non-duck comics, like the Porky Pig or Our Gang stories he did. Kirby is my all-time favorite action artist, but I have zero interest in the comics he did for Pacific. I buy his Fourth World comics for the art, but apart from Kamandi, don't read them because the stories aren't interesting to me. I much prefer Kirby's Fantastic Four work, particularly the later issues. This doesn't mean the art in those issues is better, but that the stories are more interesting to me, for whatever reason.

In the MCU, it goes beyond a question of interest however, and crosses over into causing offense. This is more like the way I feel about Harvey Kurtzman, another of my favorite comic book artists. Kurtzman's war stories are very well executed and interesting (to me.) His satire comics, like Mad and Help! or even the material he did for Playboy, are offensive to me. All of them are rude and employ a kind of humor that isn't just "not funny" to me, but offensive. The quality of the art and writing is not meaningfully different between the war and satire comics, but the flavor is significantly different.

When I read complaints about Captain Marvel and other late MCU movies, they can be interpreted as complaints about the flavor of the films as opposed to their intrinsic technical merit. Here is how I would describe the flavors of the earliest MCU films:

• Iron Man: Pure, unabashed, unapologetic, masculine adventure and righteous heroism
• Thor: Virtue and responsibility, with no apologies for strict interpretations of these standards
• Captain America: Virtuous male as protector of the defenseless, an ideal to be emulated. True of the first two as well.
• Avengers: Sublimation of ego and other competing interests to maximize strength against an enemy that threatens innocents. Corollary: unless individual differences set aside, others suffer.

Those are the type of themes I associate with Phase One, and for the most part, Phase Two and most of Phase Three. As I recall, the last film that was a strong example of these themes was Doctor Strange, and the first to introduce the themes I didn't like was Civil War. Speaking of which, some examples of the new flavors in the transition movies from Phase Three:

• Civil War: Accepting group responsibility for something that isn't your fault shows how virtuous you are (What? Why? Makes no sense to me)
• Captain Marvel: You can't trust anything because you've been brainwashed, but you can trust the people trying to kill you (an interesting idea, but it is a plot, not a theme, thus lightweight compared to earlier films)
• Ragnarok: Mockery of masculine virtue is humorous and appropriate. Here, we get into offensive Mad magazine territory for the first time in the MCU. 
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Men are dumb and helpless without a smart and capable woman to lead them. As a one-off, I liked the movie, but the theme was irritating and shallow. There are weak and stupid men who will demean themselves for the attention of a woman, but not all men are like that, and it seemed inappropriate and magical (as in, an evil spell) for Scott Lang to behave that way.

Late MCU:

• Eternals: Good looking people lit well look good if photographed correctly. That was about al that was going on in this film, which I didn't finish. It was like an extended perfume advertisement, with a few wraiths thrown in to spice it up.
• Love and Thunder: Anyone who believes in God is stupid and harbors malicious delusions of grandeur. Also, men are stupid, careless, and weak compared to women. This movie was offensive from start to finish.
• Black Widow: Non-stop action can distract from the absence of a major theme. The movie didn't offend me but lacked the kind of appeal that originally drew me to the MCU. This could be described as another "women are better than men" movie, but there aren't enough men in lead roles to describe it as a major theme. The men (Black Widow's father and the evil Russian in the sky) are not treated well by the writers, but the focus isn't usually on them, unlike in Ragnarok or Love and Thunder.

After reviewing these now, I see that the characteristics that bother me in late MCU films fit into a couple of discrete groups. They are:

1. The film overtly mocks a demographic I belong to, usually "male" but sometimes extending to "believes in God" or "American."
2. The film lacks a strong theme (Black Panther, Eternals, Quantumania)
3. The film includes short but offensive distracting references that interfere with the narrative (Endgame, Multiverse of Madness, Civil War, Shang-Chi)

The most common complaint I read from other people about these movies has to do with race and gender-swapping. I don't like that either, but consider it a minor complaint to the others listed above. Here are the swapped or pseudo-swapped characters I noticed:

• Nick Fury. Swapped race, Caucasian to black. Effect: Doesn't bother me. I like Jackson in the role, though would have preferred he was a different named character to hold open the possibility of the "real" Nick Fury showing up some day.
• The Ancient One: Swapped race and gender: Effect: Doesn't bother me. The explanation that "The Ancient One" is a title, not a unique designation is adequate. More importantly, Swinton was very interesting as this character. 
• Iron Man/Iron Heart: Apparently this does come from the comics, but comics I've never seen. Initially, this looks born out of the same impetus that gave us Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman in the 1970's, but in Disney's hands, is used to take away from the merits of Tony Stark/Iron Man while building up Pepper Potts/Iron Heart. This is offensive to me because it denies the importance of the man in the suit. It makes the suit into the hero, not the person inside it.
• Hulk/She-Hulk: This comes from the John Byrne run on Sensational She-Hulk. As such, it is canon. If the scenes with Hulk are removed, I liked the series. I did not like how the filmmakers felt they had to make She-Hulk better than Hulk to the point of mockery. Not gracious, cool, or credible.
• Thor/She-Thor: Again, there is precedent for this in the comics. In the film, She-Thor is better than Thor. This seems to be because she is female, and no other reason. Meaning, a twenty-five year old female astrophysicist from the planet Earth is somehow more wise, intelligent, and virtuous than a 5,000 year old man from an advanced civilization. Not credible, particularly when combined with copious mockery.
• Captain America/Captain Amerikette: I enjoy the Peggy Carter character as Peggy Carter. I also like her as Agent Carter. She makes sense in both roles. Making her into a female Captain America comes across as theft, and I resent that. It takes a character I like, Captain America, and removes him from the picture. At that point alone, I no longer have a positive impression of whoever replaces him. When it turns out to be Peggy Carter, although I like her character, I resent her now because she's effectively destroyed another good character, and done so unnecessarily.
• Captain America/Falcon: Swapped race. I like the Falcon as Captain America's partner and as a standalone character. As with Peggy Carter, I don't like to see Captain America supplanted by someone else, even if it's a character I like. Oddly, I would prefer Captain America dies, never to be seen again, than to have other people wear his uniform. It seems sacrilegious.
• Mar-Vell/Mar-vell: Gender swap. To clarify, this is Annette Benning playing Mar-Vell, not Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. This bothered me because, unlike Tilda Swinton's Ancient One, there wasn't a good explanation for this, and Benning's portrayal wasn't so good that she was the obvious choice. In addition, Mar-vell was significantly changed for this film, in ways that didn't make him more interesting either as a her or as a rocket scientist.
• Captain Marvel/Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel): Brie Larson's Captain Marvel is named Carol Danvers. Therefore, I am comfortable stating that this is a case of a name swap, where "Ms. Marvel" becomes "Captain Marvel." This is not a gender-swapped character. The gender swap is with Annette Benning. I agree with others that Larson comes across as smug, arrogant, and has literally no faults to make her credible as a human or even as a Kree. I agree with others that she is the least likable character in the MCU, on the level of Scrappy-Doo, or Oliver from the Brady Bunch.
• EDIT: Valkyrie: race/gender preference swap. The idea of a black Valkyrie doesn't make loads of sense in the context of Norse myths. Nor does a same-sex affinity. However, if this character was somehow appealing, those two issues could have been overcome. By making her a rude alcoholic, she became essentially the opposite of everything I would expect from a Valkyrie. And, since there is no added value to writing/casting the character this way, the race swap and gender affinity swap can be held against the character because they don't enhance it either.
• EDIT: Heimdall: Race swap. Like Nick Fury, I liked this Heimdall. There is nothing about this portrayal that betrays the essential character of Heimdall, and the actor does an excellent job infusing the character with the strength and timelessness expected of him.

 

i also agree that this is one of, if not the best post i have ever read on these boards !! a a=masterpiece put into words - thank you for your contributions to these boards they are much appreciated by those of us with wisdom 

[namisgr]

On 11/9/2023 at 6:00 PM, paqart said:

"Messaging that annoys me". Happy?

Just so long as you can understand the message of a 'Prince Charming' annoys others.

[1950's war comics]

it is so refreshing to finally read a thread with some exceptional critical thinkers contributing in a fantastic way !! except for a few posts here and there this has been one of the most refreshing and intellectual discussions these boards have ever known  !!

[Buzzetta]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:01 PM, jcjames said:

If so, that's good. 

The thing that repels me from anything with Brie Larson is Brie Larson. Can't stand her. It's visceral.

I get the same repulsion from anything featuring Kevin Costner, Jack Black or Pete Davidson. 

Some actors just turn my stomach. Brie Larson is one. 

 I love Pete.  (Side note, I know that Pete is essentially playing himself in The King of Staten Island but it was a generally good movie from start to finish.)