On adapting stories where beloved characters are given complex and tragic character arcs, without doing the legwork the the original medium did to make those arcs effective:
(SPOILERS for the Phoenix Saga and Dark Phoenix Saga in the X-Men comics and 90s cartoon; possible spoilers for the upcoming Dark Phoenix movie)
Hmm… one wonders if the directors/producers of films expect our familiarity or popularity of a particular actor to do much of the heavy lifting of this variety? Like the audiences already standing emotional engagement with Sophie Turner will do the work that the narrative of a comic story does…
Suddenly a lot less interested in seeing this movie.
I have no problem with him not feeling any urge to see Endgame. And I’m certainly not going to claim that Marvel movies represent the height of tightly-woven story arcs and logical character development, rather than largely unearned catharsis and muddled thematic messages.
But, come on. They’re popcorn movies. There’s no need to deride people (especially the same people who you’re hoping will come to watch your next movie) for enjoying and defending movies which never fail to at least be fun and emotionally engaging.
He should read Tom Hiddleston’s essay comparing today’s superheros to Greek mythology:
Perhaps they don’t rise to the same level of quality, but Shakespeare would be another apt comparison. His works were written to appeal to the common folk, the lowest common denominator; they have more in common with the superhero movies of our time than with high-brow art pieces.
Sounds like a PhD dissertation to me.
One of my favourite things to do when someone is snotty about superhero films or science fiction is to ask them what they think of A Midsummer Night’s Dream – or, if they sniff at Shakespeare for being common, Aristophanes.
Anyone who wants it as such is welcome to it; my masochism doesn’t have quite that much ambition to it.
You can also remind them that Shakespeare was the pop culture of it’s day… He WAS common in his own time. It’s only more recently that we’ve elevated him to such a high cultural status.
Aristophanes even more so. The main differences between him and any other sketch comic are that the genre was relatively new, and the people he’s mocking are dead and with few exceptions forgotten.
Yup, both Aristophanes and Shakespeare were a lot less high-brow than their modern reputations imply. I remember sitting in a college class where half of us were blushing during a read of Lysistrata. (One of my male classmates turned brick red when he read his part out loud.) And Shakespeare has plenty of sexual puns… the chat stream on Twitch is having lots of fun with them (and everything else they can meme. Richard the Third is about to get “cancelled.” 
And poor Cleopatra died by snek.)
I consider them to be the modern equivalent of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Commander Cody, etc. It’s a long dumb story but a lot of fun if you like to put your brain on hold and watch the hero punch the bad guys.
I don’t always go to see them in the theater but I do enjoy them for the simple popcorn fluff that they are and they do an extremely competent job at it.
I do roll my eyes at my kid who reads too much fanboy theory and hateon online. I get turned off by the THESE ARE THE BEST EVER as much as I get turned off by THESE ARE THE WORST EVER. It seems like it is impossible to just go hey I have fun watching this and have a mild interest in the overall story because goddam you nerdboys are killing the fun with this arguing over and nitpicking some happy escapism that isn’t meant to be anything more. Obviously there are deeper themes and statements happening but mostly we just like to see the bad guy get punched and that is fine.
Right? I mean, I have a long-winded feminist theory about Man of Steel (don’t worry, I’ll spare you), but it was also a great excuse to eat popcorn, and it was also deserving of at least some of the criticism leveled its way (although IMHO some of that got very nitpicky).
It’s almost like cultural artifacts can have multifaceted interpretations or something.
I’m so tired of entire bodies of work getting written off for one scene that didn’t quite work. If we’re supposed to hate things because of “problematic aspects”, how the hell did Game of Thrones last nine seasons?
If a television show or movie isn’t worth problematizing,. is it worth watching?
Only half jokingly… cause we haven’t progressed as much as we have thought.
Boobies.
Oh yeah, totally with you. I just find it annoying that while GoT is being GoT and before that Breaking Bad depicted all the stuff it did, and before that the Sopranos, and right now Handmaid’s Tale is showing women with their mouths bolted shut and worse, all that exploration of evil, I’ve seen multiple indie authors having to distance themselves from their villains. They get nasty accusations of being racist, sexist, etc because they made their villains villainous. Anything in a book is assumed to be explicit promotion and approval.
This makes no sense. Bad guys are supposed to be evil, and we’re not supposed to agree with them or root for them (although a talented writer or actor can affect that outcome.) It isn’t advocacy at all, that’s Writing 101.