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Saved!Kevin Feige is taking over X-Men and Fantastic Four, and Bob Iger says there shouldn't be "two Marvels," so it's probably time to say adieu to the best superhero film series we've had.
https://www.cnet.com/news/marvel-kevin-feige-taking-over-x-men-movie-franchise/
https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-wants-marvels-kevin-feige-to-oversee-x-men-after-fox-merger-2018-9-
Saved!MrZAPEditing … The MCU isn't going anywhere though. -
Saved!Husky WingEditing … Do you really think the MCU is the best superhero series we've had? -
Saved!MrZAPEditing … Ratio of good to bad movies is the best if you don't count the Nolan movies.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … The DC Direct-to-DVD Animated movies might be on par but I have to catch up with it so I can't really say.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Also the X-Men films are shit for continuity and you know how I care about that.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … The way I see it, the MCU's got the most bland and generic movies of the bunch, their shtick's as predictable as a Disney princess flick. The X-Men's got shit like 3, Origins, and Apocalypse, but then it's also got some of the very best the superhero genre has to offer, like First Class, Days of Future Past, two Deadpools, and Logan. These movies are also some of the riskiest superhero movies ever made, being titles that completely forewent past entries, retconned the past, or were R-rated comedies or western dramas. Plus an upcoming superhero horror movie? That's risky as shit, X-Men actually tries new things, and whether it pays off or not, it's better worth watching than something I've basically already seen before. I don't expect Marvel to be taking any risks with the X-Men, not unless they're getting TV shows. Their movies are best summed up as just typical.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … anyway I'm gonna really miss seeing those risks taken, cuz as much as I like plenty MCU entries (GotG 1 & 2, Iron Man 3 are my tops--yeah, real big fan of 3) nothing tickles my fancy like the X-Men's best. It seems like almost every MCU movie gets hailed as the "best one yet," and then I watch it and think "well, it's sort of the same as the last one." There come along exceptions, but generally, the experience feels stale.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I can somewhat agree with your argument about taking risks, but that doesn't change the fact that I think the MCU movies are on average better movies. To go by my favorite superhero movies list, Logan is the highest rated X-Men movie at 8.5 and GotG is my highest rated MCU movie at 9.5, and Ragnarok and Civil War are both 9s. The MCU has nine movies in the top 25 and three higher ranked than Logan. The X-Men films have three in the top 25 and two of those (First Class and Deadpool 1) are at the bottom of that list (DoFP is at 26 as well). Alongside that the X-Men films have a full five movies scored 5.0 or below (X-Men 1, The Last Stand, Origins, The Wolverine, and Apocalypse; yeah yeah I know you like The Wolverine, whatever, I didn't) and the lowest rated MCU movie is Iron Man 2 at 5.5. Three of those X-Men movies are in my bottom ten for all superhero movies and Iron Man 2 doesn't even fall in the bottom 20 (this is out of 75 total superhero movies I've seen so far). So sure they can take risks and sometimes it pays off but just as often or maybe more often they flub it and it's a bad or mediocre movie that I didn't enjoy. They're not consistent. They also have performances of varying quality (particularly pre-First Class), mostly weak characterization outside of the lead group and once again they don't care about continuity. The main reason why DoFP happened is because they realized this and decided to canonize a way to ignore everything pre-2011. I will say that the quality has improved somewhat in the past several years but it's still not as consistently good as the MCU movies, Nolanverse, or DC Original Animated Movies.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … As someone who has been bingeing the MCU for the past year as opposed to watching it as it goes, I've grown to really appreciate the work put into a real shared universe with diverse characters. They've done a great job of worldbuilding, arguably the best in film history in terms of scale (I would say Star Wars or LotR, but the former only really counts ahead if you include the EU stuff and the latter is an adaptation). Worldbuilding is one of my favorite things in storytelling so I really love what they've done. So it's not only great in terms of individual movies but also as a larger tapestry.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … I don't really care about The Wolverine, for me that's pretty much just another superhero movie as well. Can hardly even remember it now. Logan however is my favorite superhero movie, I mean, with zero competition. I'm just not sure I can ever expect the MCU to give me another movie I'd consider "amazing," the best I expect from them is above average, and generally I find they're just defining average. Maybe I see the X-Men as more willing to embrace potential.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Those TV shows though? These MCU shows have been amazing, they're kicking the big screen's ass right now. I'm on season 2 of Daredevil right now--actually, I'm leaving my responses between episodes--and yeah, I didn't like season 1 much, but this season's improved every single aspect. The filming, the action, the characters, and the pacing--even the accent's better! It's not perfect, hell I'm not sure I could even call it good, but it's not distracting, and that's what's important! If only Ewan McGregor could patch up his American as quick as Charlie Cox did :p
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Really? I thought season 2 was quite uneven compared to season 1 and felt cluttered with all the subplots.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I agree with you on the general quality of the TV shows, though. AOS, Agent Carter, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones have all been fantastic, and Luke Cage and Punisher were pretty good too.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Ha, so I've only seen the fantastic ones so far then! I'm watching through in order of release (by season) so I've only seen SHIELD, Carter, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones. Poor Agent Carter, getting cancelled like that :( . After these, I'm either watching the Arrowverse, Gotham, or the X-Men shows.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … "The DC Direct-to-DVD Animated movies might be on par" Ha, fuuuuuuuuck that, there are like three of them worth watching more than once out of.... holy shit, 32! Unless you're referring to the New 52 continuity that started with Justice League: War, in which case none of them are worth a second viewing. THAT is the only superhero film series more bland and generic than the MCU. -
Saved!SandvichEditing … Totally agree with Husky, X-Men rules, the haters can spin on it. The MCU may not have any flaming turds like Origins, but it would also never take any creative risks like Deadpool, Logan or Legion. The MCU doesn't have any career-defining dramatic performances like those of Stewart, McKellen, McAvoy, Fassbender and Jackman. Infinity War truly hurt my view of the franchise, and my resentment has only grown as the general consensus has become that it's a masterpiece. It's at #20 on IMDB ffs! I really don't want other films taking cues from it. That is the ballsiest Marvel is ever going to be when going dark and dramatic. That was their most herculean effort to give a story dramatic impact, but if it's handled that sloppily I want none of it.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … Also disagree on the MCU's TV series. Other than the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones, they've been an absolute chore to get through. If you haven't seen Legion, Husky, you're in for a treat.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … Overall, I'm kinda okay with the franchise coming to an end. It's been with us for 18 years. I would have liked to get 10 years or so out of the First Class cast, but Apocalypse had a lot of problems and I have ZERO confidence in Dark Phoenix. While I'm glad to see Singer gone from the franchise for purely non-creative reasons, this is Simon Kinberg's directorial debut, and other than Days of Future Past, he's written some of the crappiest blockbusters ever put to film. I had high hopes for the New Mutants, but a PG-13 rating deflated a lot of that, but I'll keep an open mind. Deadpool 2 was a big disappointment, and while I leave room for the possibility of enjoying a third movie, I'd be okay with leaving it where it is (though there's no way they're going ditch those Deadpool dollars). Good night sweet prince!
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … @Husky Wing Peggy is probably my favorite MCU character period. I'd give almost anything for a third season of Agent Carter. And yeah, I've been watching everything in release order as well (I'm in the middle of season 2 of Jessica Jones right now, though I've kinda stopped for a bit to focus on other things like MLP and CK2).
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … @Sandy Vich To be fair I'm way behind on the DC Animated movies and going through them will be one of my next projects after the MCU. I've seen all of them through All-Star Superman though and First Flight, New Frontier, Under the Red Hood, and All-Star Superman were all great. Crisis on Two Earths and Wonder Woman 2009 were pretty good as well. The others weren't quite as good but consistently entertained me. The showcases were all good as well, especially the Spectre and Jonah Hex ones.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I haven't seen Infinity War yet. I planned to catch it on the way out but I've slowed a bit recently due to some burnout after watching a ton of it pretty fast (similar thing happened to me last fall for like six weeks). I can't speak too much about the praise because of that, though I've been fairly spoiled (that kind of thing doesn't bother me much). The imdb rankings have been a joke anyway at least since the TDK ranking nonsense. New releases and blockbuster releases are heavily favored in the rankings due to the userbase and the fact that you don't need to see something or even necessarily have it be released yet to rate it. I am looking forward to watching Infinity War, though, because I enjoy the big crossover movies for the most part. I like seeing lots of cool characters onscreen doing things.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I think the MCU has given some great performances as well. RDJ, Holland, and Hiddleston have all given character-defining performances and the acting has been generally decent throughout with a few notable exceptions. And that's just the movies; the TV side is packed with great performances outside of Inhumans and Iron Fist (and even the latter had some standouts). Are any of the movie performances as good as Jackman in Logan? Maybe not, though that's nothing to be ashamed about.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I'd be sad to see the X-Men movies end, though I can see why it's kind of a good time to wrap things up anyway with Jackman and Stewart moving on and Dark Phoenix presumably wrapping up a lot of things for the newer cast. I don't care about Deadpool sequels. If they come out I'll watch them I'm sure, but I wouldn't miss them if they didn't. 1 was a lot of fun but it wasn't fantastic, and 2 was a step down though still decent. I'm not too wild about the X-Men being introduced into the MCU unless they handle it really carefully because I think there's a high chance of it being done badly (though I've stated before my desire for the FF to be brought in, maybe as a show).
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … There's actually an argument that these comic book franchises would have a hard time lasting super long anyway (at least in live-action) due to the aging of the actors. For example, assuming it was an actual success, think about Henry Cavill as Superman. He's in his mid-thirties now. I could see him being Superman for at most twenty more years before he just stops being credible in the role, and then you either recast (awkward after such a long time; these movies aren't Bond, they have actual continuity) or you just take out Superman and have legacy heroes. Now try to imagine a DC movie franchise without Superman. You can't do it. You need him. So at some point after a bunch of the main actors have aged out you should end it and start over with something new. The X-Men films couldn't really last much longer (at least in terms of the pre-First Class era actors for much longer anyway) either way because most superheroes are supposed to be relatively young.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … The only DC Universe Animated Original Movies I would recommend to anyone are Wonder Woman, Under the Red Hood and the Flashpoint Paradox. I bought the latter two on Blu-Ray, though kind of feel Red Hood wasn't worth adding to the collection upon rewatch. It's fine, but I feel no desire to ever watch it a third time. Flashpoint is fuckin' lit tho. With the exception of All-Star Superman I've seen them all up to Justice League: Dark, and at that point I just told myself that it had been ten movies since there had been a winner and I was wasting my time. There are those I've enjoyed qutie a bit like the Frank Miller ones and Superman vs. the Elite, but again, I'm never watching them again. The Killing Joke was straight up awful, and the fact that they put that movie in theaters but kept the same cheap-ass television quality animation tells me that they're just churning these movies out on a slapped together assembly line like Telltale Games. Honestly I might say that with Wonder Woman, the DCEU's 1/5 hit to miss ratio looks a lot more favorable than the animated films' 1/10ish run.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … I said career-defining, not character defining. Yes, RDJ and Holland and others have turned in great performances that breathed new life into their characters, but that's not what I'm talking about. I would compare those more to Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler or Reynolds' Deadpool. I'm talking about performances that absolutely transcend the usual trappings of the genre. I consider the X-Men actors I listed as some of the best in the business, but I still consider McAvoy's "I don't want your future!" to be some of his best work. When Fassbender screams "You abandoned us all!" I legitimately get chills. Hell, for all of Apocalypse's flaws, when he delivered the line "They would have wanted to live!" it caught me totally off guard. If Marvel would loosen the reigns in terms of dramatic weight we might get those performances from RDJ and Holland, but Infinity War was their best shot at that. Like the stakes in that movie are as big as they come, and it's an absolute kick to the balls how much it doesn't work for me.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … Actually some the performances in S1 of Jessica Jones might be the MCUs best execution of what I'm talking about, Tennant in particular.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I don't follow you with the performances. I don't think there's anything inherently different about the superhero genre that has to be "transcended". Everything is in a genre (or genres). I mean I thought RDJ put in great performances in the three Iron Man movies (particularly the third) that would have been great in a different context too if he kept that caliber and sold the role the same way. The only performances I would rate above him would be Jackman (in Logan only; he was nothing special outside of that) and Stewart and McKellen, and that's mostly BECAUSE they're Stewart and McKellen and are great in everything they do. Fassbender's a great actor and I love him generally but his Magneto, while quite good, isn't what I would consider one of his best performances like in 12 Years a Slave or Steve Jobs. McAvoy is fine, but nothing really special IMO. I like him. I've never needed him.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … Deleted by himself
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I haven't seen much of RDJ's or Holland's work outside the MCU (frankly I bounce around enough that there aren't too many actors I can say I've seen a "lot" of; the actors I would go out of my way to see is very short, and the only ones in any of these movies who would probably be on that list are Blanchett, Ejiofir, and Keaton, and maybe Fassbender and Elba, and all of those are largely for other work), but I think it's reasonable to call their roles career highs (or among their highs for RDJ) based on the level of their performances.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … If I'm being quite honest, I haven't been all that impressed with Holland's Spider-Man. And I'm alone there. But it might not be his fault, it might be the writing. I'm with Sandy on the X-Men cast, I think Fassbender, McAvoy, Patrick, Jackman, and McKellen have delivered some phenomenal performances with their superheroes, and "phenomenal" is not a word that can hardly ever be used within this genre. And it ends up making those movies feel special. I like special.
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Saved!DJ_JJSliderEditing … ...I like the Ghostbusters. The original ones. I also like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I might have to watch them again. And also skip TMNT 3. -
Saved!DJ_JJSliderEditing … I can't remember a superhero series that really, really hooked me. Except for maybe Hellboy. For big, chunky monster costumes.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … I like Men in Black.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … And Chronicle.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … For me it's gotta be The Incedibles, but I lump that in with general Pixar greatness more than superhero movies specifically.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … And Dr. Horrible!
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Chronicle's got something really exceptional about it. I'd like to see more. Never actually seen Hellboy... I'll fix that eventually. Same with the Punisher movies. How about that Unbreakable?
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I haven't seen the first Punisher movie but War Zone is my most hated movie of all time.
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Saved!Husky WingEditing … Oh golly
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Saved!SandvichEditing … By the first movie do you mean #The Punisher or #The Punisher? I haven't seen the actual first one either, but the Thomas Jane one is a pretty big pile of fail, and all three films are apparently just the worst.
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Saved!SandvichEditing … Unbreakable is overrated in my opinion but it's perfectly fine, certainly better than anything else Shyamalan did for the next decade (I fuckin' hate Signs).
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … I didn't realize there were more than two. But yeah I've only seen War Zone and I have no interest in the others after that.
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Saved!MrZAPEditing … In War Zone there's a scene during the climax where Castle literally blows a guy's head off with his gun and it just explodes. It's both disgusting and a perfect metaphor for the movie.
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