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

[jaybuck43]

On 11/14/2023 at 5:41 PM, jsilverjanet said:

I've seen 8 movies in the theater this year

ant man

gotg3

fast x

across the spider-verse

the flash

insidious the red door

mission impossible

barbie

of all those, the only one i didn't enjoy was ant man and insidious (wife wanted to see that one)

How did you not see Oppenheimer in theaters?  It was fantastic.  

 

[paqart]

On 11/14/2023 at 2:25 PM, jsilverjanet said:

wait aren't you the same person who "claims" 1:100 ratio on modern newsstands

 

Your question makes me think you're the person who keeps claiming that I claim this. What I have actually written is that some newsstands appear for sale on eBay (where they are most easily found) extremely infrequently or not at all. It paradoxically starts at about 3 directs to every newsstand (1:3) in the early 1980's, when newsstands (NS) were printed in much higher numbers than direct. It goes down to about 1:8-1:20 depending on issue by the late 1980's. By 2000, NS editions are down to a low of 1:20 for most issues, up to 1:40 for others. Some issues between 2000-2017 are extremely hard to find. I searched over 1,500 copies of Ultimate Fallout #4. Only one was a newsstand, for a 1,500:1 ratio. Some NS editions I've never seen for sale but have seen photos. Others, I've never seen photos or copies for sale, but they presumably exist based on surrounding issues that do have NS editions.

The "1:100 claim" that you and a few others make so often is something I have seen in eBay listings for NS edition comics. I have never made such a listing. In most cases, my own research tells me that the supposed 1:100 rarity of specific NS editions is an exaggeration of what is actually between 1:20 to 1:40. However, some really are available at the rate of 1:100 or less. By the time you get past about 1:50, they are almost all less common than 1:100 or even 1:200. On this basis, I don't disagree that some NS editions are approximately 1:100 rarity compared to direct editions, but do not agree that all issues from a given period are this rare. I also do not believe that 1:100 rarity is the most extreme rarity possible for NS editions. Based on market availability, some issues are found less frequently than 1:200. The only comic I've seen cross the 1:1000 threshold is UF4, but I know of dozens that may have never been offered for sale, which might put them in about the same territory.

As for venues where NS editions might be found:

eBay is the best I have found. They have the largest selection and are the most easily searched. This is why I use it for benchmarking rarity.

Hip Comics has what looks like a decent selection, though not anywhere near as extensive as eBay. A couple of sellers, NewKadia and MileHigh have most of the newsstand listings, which skew the results. Regardless, this source doesn't look much different from eBay, except smaller numbers overall.

Comic book shops: they almost all have newsstands from before 1990, and a smattering between 1991-1999. After that, practically nothing regardless of store size.

Flea markets and garage sales: if they have newsstands, they are from the 1980's in almost all cases.

[paqart]

On 11/14/2023 at 3:12 PM, Azkaban said:

I go and see every comic book movie when they come out with a group of friends used to be we would go first day so as not to get spoiled and then I would go again that weekend with my wife and daughter and they loved them plus I got to see them twice. They finally understood what the fuss was all about and could see why the old man loved his comics  but now I can't even get my wife to go anymore and my daughter sometimes wants to still go but even she isn't liking them anymore. She hated Thor Love and Thunder said it was stupid and made Thor seem like a 13 year old. I think Eternals was the last one my wife went to and she fell asleep. 

This is similar to my experience. The last one my daughter went to was Ragnarok, which she didn't like. The last one my wife saw was Ant-Man and the Wasp, which she did like. 

[Nick Furious]

If we are being completely honest about all the reasons for the decline in ticket sales, is there any way to account for the negative effect of the streaming platforms?  Disney Plus didn't exist until after Avengers Endgame.  The need to see MCU movies in the theater diminished greatly when it became evident that they would be available on the streaming platforms with a couple months of patience.  This is not me giving a pass to the bad writing, convoluted stories and C-list characters...but I think it must play a significant role in the decline of ticket sales, no?  Maybe not for Spider-man, but at least for the movies that already had a few negatives working against them?

Edited November 15, 2023 by Nick Furious

[paqart]

On 11/14/2023 at 4:01 PM, VintageComics said:

 

I disagree on fatigue. That's like saying you can have too many great Frank Frazetta book jackets, or Neal Adams Batmans, or Carl Barks Donald Ducks. Maybe if they were coming out every couple weeks, but three or four a year is no problem, provided I like them. If I don't, then it's fatigue. Not because I'm tired of the property, but that I'm tired of them screwing it up.

When Nintendo bought Wizards of the Coast and started turning out new decks every month, that was fatiguing. The reason is that I couldn't afford to keep up with all the new decks. On top of that, the old cards were more fun to play. The new ones from Nintendo kept getting more powerful, making them impossible to use in a fair contest with older decks, so you really had to keep buying new cards. That would have cost a few hundred a month to keep up, but then you had to learn the cards, and there wasn't time in between releases to do it.

MCU movies are passive entertainment and less expensive than Pokemon cards. Meaning, no fatigue. Every argument about the characters getting tired or the audience tired of the characters, is not striking me as true.

[VintageComics]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:27 PM, Nick Furious said:

If we are being completely honest about all the reasons for the decline in ticket sales, is there any way to account for the negative effect of the streaming platforms?  Disney Plus didn't exist until after Avengers Endgame.  The need to see MCU movies in the theater diminished greatly when it became evident that they would be available on the streaming platforms with a couple months of patience.  This is not me giving a pass to the bad writing, convoluted stories and C-list characters...but I think it must play a significant role in the decline of ticket sales, no?  Maybe not for Spider-man, but at least for the movies that already had a few negatives working against them?

Wouldn't that affect ALL movies that get streamed, then and not just the MCU?

I've asked this before, but where is the overall performance data for ALL MOVIE HOUSES so we can compared apples to apples. 

As @NewWorldOrder stated, Universal seems to be doing "just fine" so how about we compare Universal movies over the last 5 years to MCU and other movie houses?

@Bosco685 ? Any thoughts?

[Axelrod]

I'm also interested in the argument that part of the reason for Marvel's woes is their resorting to "C" and "D" list characters for their more recent films.  Given the tremendous success of Guardians of the Galaxy and it's collection of more or less "F" level characters.  

Perhaps Disney got cocky and thought that proved they could make a movie with anyone and people would come. 

Perhaps they were even correct. 

The problem to me is not the characters they are using, but the stories they have chosen to tell (and, perhaps moreso, the writing and plotting of same).  They maybe got a little lazy, or more possibly they just got overworked with the demand for constantly pumping out new product on a pre-determined schedule and the quality suffered as a result.  Certainly happened with the special effects of some of these films.  

Note this has not one damn thing to do with stupid "messaging" complaints.  

[VintageComics]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:32 PM, paqart said:

I disagree on fatigue. That's like saying you can have too many great Frank Frazetta book jackets, or Neal Adams Batmans, or Carl Barks Donald Ducks. Maybe if they were coming out every couple weeks, but three or four a year is no problem, provided I like them. If I don't, then it's fatigue. Not because I'm tired of the property, but that I'm tired of them screwing it up.

When Nintendo bought Wizards of the Coast and started turning out new decks every month, that was fatiguing. The reason is that I couldn't afford to keep up with all the new decks. On top of that, the old cards were more fun to play. The new ones from Nintendo kept getting more powerful, making them impossible to use in a fair contest with older decks, so you really had to keep buying new cards. That would have cost a few hundred a month to keep up, but then you had to learn the cards, and there wasn't time in between releases to do it.

MCU movies are passive entertainment and less expensive than Pokemon cards. Meaning, no fatigue. Every argument about the characters getting tired or the audience tired of the characters, is not striking me as true.

The "fatigue" these people talk about needs to be specifically defined, because I've already stated that Superhero fatigue not going to happen. Why? Because history has been rife with Superhero archtypes for as long has humans have been alive, from JHWH, to Jesus, to Mohammed, to the Vikings to today's idols and rock stars. 

Comics haven't had Superhero fatigue in 80 years. 

So what kind of fatigue are we talking about?

Good story fatigue?

Eh, no.

The type of fatigue EVERY industry has in EVERY society in EVERY civilization is BAD STORY FATIGUE. And that's not fatigue. It's just bad stories.

"Fatigue" is the new scapegoat to pretend there aren't deeper, underlying problems in much the same way that "fatigue" is used as an excuse for many of societies recent ills when in fact, society is being offered faulty products. 

If there's one thing EVERYONE is fatigued about, it's that their legs are being urinated on but they're being told it's rain.

And everyone is tired of the lies. 

[paqart]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:27 PM, Nick Furious said:

If we are being completely honest about all the reasons for the decline in ticket sales, is there any way to account for the negative effect of the streaming platforms?  Disney Plus didn't exist until after Avengers Endgame.  The need to see MCU movies in the theater diminished greatly when it became evident that they would be available on the streaming platforms with a couple months of patience.  This is not me giving a pass to the bad writing, convoluted stories and C-list characters...but I think it must play a significant role in the decline of ticket sales, no?  Maybe not for Spider-man, but at least for the movies that already had a few negatives working against them?

Not for me. I prefer the theater experience, so if I expect to like a film, I'll make an effort to see it in the theater. If I'm not sure, I'll stream it.

[VintageComics]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:40 PM, Axelrod said:

I'm also interested in the argument that part of the reason for Marvel's woes is their resorting to "C" and "D" list characters for their more recent films.  Given the tremendous success of Guardians of the Galaxy and it's collection of more or less "F" level characters.  

Perhaps Disney got cocky and thought that proved they could make a movie with anyone and people would come. 

Perhaps they were even correct. 

The problem to me is not the characters they are using, but the stories they have chosen to tell (and, perhaps moreso, the writing and plotting of same).  They maybe got a little lazy, or more possibly they just got overworked with the demand for constantly pumping out new product on a pre-determined schedule and the quality suffered as a result.  Certainly happened with the special effects of some of these films.  

Note this has not one damn thing to do with stupid "messaging" complaints.  

Disney, through several messages in the last while over several people has openly admitted to spreading themselves thin, losing focus, using weaker IP and pushing out too much low quality junk. 

They did get cocky and it backfired. 

WHY they did it is a different discussion. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by VintageComics

[paqart]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:40 PM, Axelrod said:

I'm also interested in the argument that part of the reason for Marvel's woes is their resorting to "C" and "D" list characters for their more recent films.  Given the tremendous success of Guardians of the Galaxy and it's collection of more or less "F" level characters.  

Perhaps Disney got cocky and thought that proved they could make a movie with anyone and people would come. 

Perhaps they were even correct. 

The problem to me is not the characters they are using, but the stories they have chosen to tell (and, perhaps moreso, the writing and plotting of same).  They maybe got a little lazy, or more possibly they just got overworked with the demand for constantly pumping out new product on a pre-determined schedule and the quality suffered as a result.  Certainly happened with the special effects of some of these films.  

Note this has not one damn thing to do with stupid "messaging" complaints.  

The actors and scripts associated with certain characters are messages all by themselves. Cassie in Quantumania was highly annoying because she was a walking billboard for the latest insufficiently_thoughtful_person teenager in college protest movement. The walking diverse Vogue shoot cast in Quantumania was also an irritating message. They made me think of how much less that crowd is than they think they are. Pretending to be victims, then heroes, when they are more like mosquitoes in my soup. Valkyrie is a perfectly fine character, but played as a disrespectful drunk by Tessa Thompson, she's awful. The Wasp as a smartass corporate executive who is of course smarter than Ant-Man and a better boxer (wink wink, she's a woman!) is a message, and an irritating one at that. The same of the foul-mouthed Shang-Chi girlfriend, astrophysicist smart aleck Jane Foster, smug Captain Marvel, and even spunky Shuri. 

Speaking of Shuri, the actress looks like a nice person. Probably the same is true of the other MCU actresses just mentioned. In another context, I would probably like her more. However, she appears to be solely and implausibly responsible for Wakanda's technical achievements. I just don't believe it at all, and if it's like that in the comics, then I feel the same. For pure storytelling purposes, they should have shown some other engineers (not all female), and given them credit for some of the things we see in Wakanda. The most recently introduced non-irritating female character was Aunt May, but she was killed off in No Way Home. My favorite current female character is Scarlet Witch, and she is about the only female character I still like. Most of the rest were ruined somehow between their introduction and Endgame.

Janet van Dyne is also irritating, primarily because she has Hank Pym on a leash, and he seems to enjoy it. These are all "characters" to the audience, but they aren't "the characters" licensed from Marvel. Meaning, they can change, and I hope they do. 

Ultimately, the problems with recent MCU films, and other entertainment offerings, is "wrongness." The characters, situations, or storylines seem wrong because they disagree with our direct experience of the world.

I don't see as many female executives in real life as I see in entertainment. Of the ones I do see, not all of them are brilliant. Some are screwups. One I know has been credibly accused of helping cheat the parent company out of quite a lot of money. The activist women that I've run into are not beautiful, smart, and kind. They tend to be arrogant, aggressive, and maybe smart but not always. I don't run into many powerlifter men who would put up with being ridiculed every time they did anything. The polite ones, and that is most of them, would just walk away without a word. That is what Thor should have done to Valkyrie or Jane Foster.

When the characters do things that no normal human would do, like Thor saying "I like this one", or all the women lining up in Endgame for a mid-battle Vogue shoot, or Cassie getting arrested (for good reason) and getting congratulated by Pym, vanDyne, and Ant-Man, the wrongness alarm sounds and it is hard to enjoy the film after that.

[1950's war comics]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:10 PM, paqart said:

The actors and scripts associated with certain characters are messages all by themselves. Cassie in Quantumania was highly annoying because she was a walking billboard for the latest insufficiently_thoughtful_person teenager in college protest movement. The walking diverse Vogue shoot cast in Quantumania was also an irritating message. They made me think of how much less that crowd is than they think they are. Pretending to be victims, then heroes, when they are more like mosquitoes in my soup. Valkyrie is a perfectly fine character, but played as a disrespectful drunk by Tessa Thompson, she's awful. The Wasp as a smartass corporate executive who is of course smarter than Ant-Man and a better boxer (wink wink, she's a woman!) is a message, and an irritating one at that. The same of the foul-mouthed Shang-Chi girlfriend, astrophysicist smart aleck Jane Foster, smug Captain Marvel, and even spunky Shuri. 

Speaking of Shuri, the actress looks like a nice person. Probably the same is true of the other MCU actresses just mentioned. In another context, I would probably like her more. However, she appears to be solely and implausibly responsible for Wakanda's technical achievements. I just don't believe it at all, and if it's like that in the comics, then I feel the same. For pure storytelling purposes, they should have shown some other engineers (not all female), and given them credit for some of the things we see in Wakanda. The most recently introduced non-irritating female character was Aunt May, but she was killed off in No Way Home. My favorite current female character is Scarlet Witch, and she is about the only female character I still like. Most of the rest were ruined somehow between their introduction and Endgame.

Janet van Dyne is also irritating, primarily because she has Hank Pym on a leash, and he seems to enjoy it. These are all "characters" to the audience, but they aren't "the characters" licensed from Marvel. Meaning, they can change, and I hope they do. 

Ultimately, the problems with recent MCU films, and other entertainment offerings, is "wrongness." The characters, situations, or storylines seem wrong because they disagree with our direct experience of the world.

I don't see as many female executives in real life as I see in entertainment. Of the ones I do see, not all of them are brilliant. Some are screwups. One I know has been credibly accused of helping cheat the parent company out of quite a lot of money. The activist women that I've run into are not beautiful, smart, and kind. They tend to be arrogant, aggressive, and maybe smart but not always. I don't run into many powerlifter men who would put up with being ridiculed every time they did anything. The polite ones, and that is most of them, would just walk away without a word. That is what Thor should have done to Valkyrie or Jane Foster.

When the characters do things that no normal human would do, like Thor saying "I like this one", or all the women lining up in Endgame for a mid-battle Vogue shoot, or Cassie getting arrested (for good reason) and getting congratulated by Pym, vanDyne, and Ant-Man, the wrongness alarm sounds and it is hard to enjoy the film after that.

fascinating observations ! most of this stuff you brought up goes straight over the average persons head...

[1950's war comics]

On 11/14/2023 at 7:45 PM, VintageComics said:

WHY they did it is a different discussion. 

as paqart mentioned before , they did it in an attempt to capture more of a percentage of a very small targeted audience ,

but what they only ended up in doing was they lost a huge percentage of their current audience.. they dismissed them off hand thinking they will remain forever loyal

[Artboy99]

On 11/14/2023 at 2:22 PM, NewWorldOrder said:

Well when the movie is this bad what else is there to talk about?

No good speculation on what happens next for the MCU, and unfortunately that is the new norm.   

Another dud in the books.  I wish we all could be talking about how good it was instead we just get new memes on the cringe musical score from this movie mixed in with the cats.

That sing-speak dance scene was horrible!

The 3 Marvels go to this planet where the way to converse is to sing: the people do not understand you unless you are singing. Brie Larson's character is also famous on this planet and transforms her costume into a "disney princess costume" and she and the prince of the planet do this sing-speak dance thing. The whole scene is about 10 minutes long, and after they are done Brie Larson reveals that the Prince is bilingual and can understand their normal english. 

It was supposed to make you laugh, instead it made the entire song-dance thing completely irrelevant. 

[VintageComics]

On 11/14/2023 at 11:10 PM, paqart said:

Pretending to be victims, then heroes, when they are more like mosquitoes in my soup.

This one in particular jumps out at me. 

I spent years being utterly lambasted on here (unsolicited may I had - it all started simply because I politely disagreed with people and they escalated from there). Things started to get impolite because after months of piling on I started to bite back, which I have no problem to do but I'm generally very patient before that happens AND offer plenty of opportunities for people to de-escalate.

When I started to point out that there were pile-ons happening (and about 20-30 boardies agreed either publicly or privately) I was accused of playing the victim. 

Now, I genuinely don't care at this point but it's worth pointing out so that if it happens again people recognize it, and the greatest irony in all of this, was that pretty much EVERY SINGLE PERSON who went out of their way to emasculate or shame me publicly and then call me the victim, would probably give the shirt off of their backs to ACTUAL PEOPLE playing victims who have not accomplished anything else other than cry loud about their problems.

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

This is all hilariously summed up by Jordan Peterson who encounters his own share of 'victims' protesting when he attends universities for lectures.

The way he avoids those protesters now?

He simply arranges his meetings at 8AM, a time when NONE of his detractors have the discipline to get up and protest him that early in the morning. 

True victims. 

So the world seems to end up defending the people who choose not to defend themselves but go after the ones who do. 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by VintageComics

[Artboy99]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:40 PM, Axelrod said:

I'm also interested in the argument that part of the reason for Marvel's woes is their resorting to "C" and "D" list characters for their more recent films.  Given the tremendous success of Guardians of the Galaxy and it's collection of more or less "F" level characters.  

Perhaps Disney got cocky and thought that proved they could make a movie with anyone and people would come. 

Perhaps they were even correct. 

The problem to me is not the characters they are using, but the stories they have chosen to tell (and, perhaps moreso, the writing and plotting of same).  They maybe got a little lazy, or more possibly they just got overworked with the demand for constantly pumping out new product on a pre-determined schedule and the quality suffered as a result.  Certainly happened with the special effects of some of these films.  

Note this has not one damn thing to do with stupid "messaging" complaints.  

agree.

It is definitely a writing problem as I do think with quality material even the lower tier characters can make a great movie and the Guardians of the Galaxy ( first film ) is a great example.

There are many great existing stories that could be chosen instead of coming up with something new.

[sfcityduck]

On 11/14/2023 at 7:43 PM, VintageComics said:

 

Comics haven't had Superhero fatigue in 80 years. 

So what kind of fatigue are we talking about?

Good story fatigue?

Eh, no.

The type of fatigue EVERY industry has in EVERY society in EVERY civilization is BAD STORY FATIGUE. And that's not fatigue. It's just bad stories.

The late 1940s saw Timely shutter all superhero comics, DC shutter all superhero titles but Superman and Batman led titles (Sensation was shuttered but WW survived due to the contract for the rights), MLJ had already shuttered its superhero titles, Harvey switched Black Cat to horror etc. In the first half of the 1950s we saw a failed Atlas revival. Yeah … there was superhero fatigue. Audiences were moving on to PCH, Romance, Teen, and other genres.  The superhero boom lasted about a decade.

MCU is still very strong economically but not as strong as the glory days. So what? That reflects the inherent weakness of the unaging superhero concept - the characters have little real growth. The MCU didn’t really develop its characters it told the proven stories and killed them off or rebooted them. Will we see a MCU implosion?  I think so. It would be a healthy development.

 

 

[Prince Namor]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:43 AM, VintageComics said:

The "fatigue" these people talk about needs to be specifically defined, because I've already stated that Superhero fatigue not going to happen. Why? Because history has been rife with Superhero archtypes for as long has humans have been alive, from JHWH, to Jesus, to Mohammed, to the Vikings to today's idols and rock stars. 

Comics haven't had Superhero fatigue in 80 years. 

So what kind of fatigue are we talking about?

Good story fatigue?

Eh, no.

The type of fatigue EVERY industry has in EVERY society in EVERY civilization is BAD STORY FATIGUE. And that's not fatigue. It's just bad stories.

"Fatigue" is the new scapegoat to pretend there aren't deeper, underlying problems in much the same way that "fatigue" is used as an excuse for many of societies recent ills when in fact, society is being offered faulty products. 

If there's one thing EVERYONE is fatigued about, it's that their legs are being urinated on but they're being told it's rain.

And everyone is tired of the lies. 

Fatigue can also be the SAME story retold endless times.

[Bosco685]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:38 PM, VintageComics said:

Wouldn't that affect ALL movies that get streamed, then and not just the MCU?

I've asked this before, but where is the overall performance data for ALL MOVIE HOUSES so we can compared apples to apples. 

As @NewWorldOrder stated, Universal seems to be doing "just fine" so how about we compare Universal movies over the last 5 years to MCU and other movie houses?

@Bosco685 ? Any thoughts?

Without even pulling individual movie numbers by each studio I think there have been some great spot-on observations made already.

1. Early MCU strength led to the assumption they could make any character a standalone movie success.

2. Marvel Studios brought in quality directors but then used producer-driven vision to drive a franchise-focused story to its detriment over time. Including detracting from individual movie stories to plug future productions.

3. Marvel Studios heard for the longest time it was critic-proof from bloggers and 'true believer' fans it started to believe this assumption. So it altered its success criteria to change things up so as to stay fresh while assuming also Item #1 (making any character a standalone movie success).

4. The breadth and depth of its releases via movies and Disney+ shows didn't allow for that tight oversight it had achieved over the years, watering down its story quality for the sake of volume. And overwhelming VFX shops to service a huge uptick in productions on tight timelines driven by creators not as familiar with prior CGI planning coordination.

5. Budgets ballooned beyond reasonable levels which then detracted from any easy box office wins. Add to this the events of the pandemic and it added additional expense to these already high investments.

6. In trying to achieve Item #3 (stay fresh) it altered traditional comic book character gender and race during a heightened societal sensitivity time where many were reacting negatively to such changes as pandering to the masses. Which then backfired in driving away long-time fans who attributed this to forced messaging.

It all adds up to so many creative detractors from the brand, no wonder the Studio House of M is suffering. And now not trusted as much as it was in the past.

Yet studios like Blumhouse found their creative north star (focus on low-budget horror leading to easier box office success). And not deviating much from their chosen distinguishing design to remain relevant and appreciated by moviegoers and investors (their key stakeholders).

[Buzzetta]

On 11/15/2023 at 4:59 AM, Bosco685 said:

Without even pulling individual movie numbers by each studio I think there have been some great spot-on observations made already.

1. Early MCU strength led to the assumption they could make any character a standalone movie success.

2. Marvel Studios brought in quality directors but then used producer-driven vision to drive a franchise-focused story to its detriment over time. Including detracting from individual movie stories to plug future productions.

3. Marvel Studios heard for the longest time it was critic-proof from bloggers and 'true believer' fans it started to believe this assumption. So it altered its success criteria to change things up so as to stay fresh while assuming also Item #1 (making any character a standalone movie success).

4. The breadth and depth of its releases via movies and Disney+ shows didn't allow for that tight oversight it had achieved over the years, watering down its story quality for the sake of volume. And overwhelming VFX shops to service a huge uptick in productions on tight timelines driven by creators not as familiar with prior CGI planning coordination.

5. Budgets ballooned beyond reasonable levels which then detracted from any easy box office wins. Add to this the events of the pandemic and it added additional expense to these already high investments.

6. In trying to achieve Item #3 (stay fresh) it altered traditional comic book character gender and race during a heightened societal sensitivity time where many were reacting negatively to such changes as pandering to the masses. Which then backfired in driving away long-time fans who attributed this to forced messaging.

It all adds up to so many creative detractors from the brand, no wonder the Studio House of M is suffering. And now not trusted as much as it was in the past.

Yet studios like Blumhouse found their creative north star (focus on low-budget horror leading to easier box office success). And not deviating much from their chosen distinguishing design to remain relevant and appreciated by moviegoers and investors (their key stakeholders).

I believe that the second point definitely has its place when trying to maintain that vision for long time story telling or pushing the narrative toward its goal. 
 

I look at the Star Wars sequels as an overall missed opportunity at best to disaster at worst due to the lack of a singular vision.  Whether anyone agrees with the vision or not is irrelevant (Added that before we get the usual from the usual.) to whether that style creates a cohesive narrative.  I DO blame Iger and Kennedy for not creating a bible as it were for the directors to work off of.   For example, people cry out about what Rey was while missing the bigger point that Lucasfilm didn’t know WHO she was. They should have known her true lineage or mapped it out from her inception. 
 

I don’t think Marvel becomes successful at the movies unless they start laying the groundwork in some of the earlier films and then go full throttle when the infinity gems become the macguffins in each film. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Buzzetta