this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Movies and TV Shows
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I haven’t watched a Marvel movie in ages.
I was excited for what they were going to do after Endgame as I really thought they were going to take things to another level, but ultimately each one feels like the same movie to me at this point.
They suffer from the same issue that every movie/show faces; needing mass appeal, following the same formula, and being afraid to have anything definitive happen.
The last bothers me the most. If I’m watching a show and a character dies, I barely react at this point; I just wonder how long until they’re back.
I would encourage you to watch the spider-verse movies, Loki, and "What If?" simply because they're quite novel and entertaining. They break the mold.
The spider-verse movies and the Loki series are great examples of how good superhero movies could be if they tried.
I just don't see a way to top the build up and ending to Endgame. A decade of movies with great actors, fun action all leading up to the huge gut punch of Infinity War and the absolute spectacle of Endgame.
After you reach that high, building up again from step one is extremely difficult. And the movies just aren't of the same quality. Besides a few good movies like No Way Home and Black Panther 2 and a few shows with strong starts or premises like Wandavision and Loki, they've all been very mid.
The overuse of death tropes was exactly why I left.
Infinity War
spoiler
hit me with a double whammy. It pulled the curtain to show that it was actually part one of a two parter. Also, it pulled the “death is reversible” card - both the death and the immediate promise of reversal - on half the galaxy’s population.I feel like even if a comic got away with such things, it’s almost better to ask if the movies are a time to revisit those tropes.
They did kill off Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Widow though. Also, wasn’t it known beforehand that it was a 2 parter?
You’re forgetting Loki. Don’t worry, he’s okay though! And Vision. Don’t worry, he’s back for Wandavision!
And, even with Black Widow dead, thankfully they can make a prequel movie!
Just to age myself a bit: One thing that I really liked about Aeris’ death in FF7 is: There’s no dying speech. There’s no ghostly message from beyond the grave. You don’t even really get to see her face in wistful memories. Everything about that character is completely ”ended” from the media the moment Sephiroth strikes her. Post-launch media tended to ruin this, but at the time it was an important treatment of death to make it impactful.
We all know magic like prequels, time travel, Lazarus pits, cloning, etc, can bring back dead people. That usually misses the point because death in media is usually meant to hold an emotional power that relates to its certainty - it’s not specifically reliant on logic.
Another death that was so “final” that has always stuck out to me was in the terminator show, “the Sarah Connor chronicles” when Reese, one of the 3 main characters, just gets shot in the back as the characters are all making their escape from a regular terminator situation. The other characters look back but have to keep running because otherwise they will get shot too, and ……that’s it. He’s dead. No speech, no drawn out death scene, no elaborate over the top death with foreshadowing - he just gets shot and he’s dead.
I'm not a comic book reader, but from what I've heard the characters never dying permanently is a common theme, so at least there's a precedent
It’s a common sci fi / fantasy trope, which a lot of these stories are. When you have beloved characters, and they’re in a world of magic and advanced technology, it’s really tempting to use the magic and technology to bring the beloved characters back.
Example - Star Trek. Spock, Kirk, Data, Picard, etc. They’ve all be resurrected at some point.
Yeh the multiverse completely ruined the marvel cinematic universe. I get why they did it, but I think it was a terrible decision. It’s not really a coincidence that almost every movie since they introduced it has flopped.
As you said, it just takes away any and all shock and drama. Oh spider man got turned to dust and died? Strange because we know he has a solo movie set after endgame coming out a few months after it, so I guess he isn’t dead.
Not to mention that the movies are all now just basically filmed entirely on a green screen, while having worse and worse CGI.