Avengers, eh? Pretty awesome, eh?
Yes, Avengers hit our screens in Ireland recently with quite a bang, and I have to say it deserved it, I'm not going to turn this into some sort of film review show, but I will be talking about films a lot, FYI.
So anyways, there has been some interesting debate online about who is better Whedon or Nolan? It's pretty entertaining to read I must admit. The best I saw was when a naive YouTuber posted on an Avengers trailer that he believed the film was good, but thought Nolan had perfected the comic book movie. One had to give the comment special permission as it had been so inundated with 'Negative Votes' and 'Spam Reports' that it had been blocked to protect ordinary Youtubers from the horrors of independent thought. Oh, YouTube, we can only admire.
Fanboys out there flock to Whedon and say that Avengers is the best super hero film ever made (a statement I'm guilty of myself after having seen it), not aware that in two months time they'll be gargling Nolan's balls and throwing out their porn ISPs for pictures of Tom Hardy in a banana-hammock.
My own opinion has fluctuated, however. In the beginning I loved it and thought nobody could best it, but then a dear friend remarked on the perfection of Batman Begins and it got me thinking. Both of the films are as close to perfect as one is going to find when it comes to comic book films, but both are also very different from each other and I had a slow, most probably belated, revelation as to what was going on.
Marvel's Avenger's Assemble, to use its full title, is the peak of what one could call the classical comic book/super hero film. The tropes of the films are now set in stone, after years of mediocre to bad superhero films (Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern, X3: The Last Stand and Spiderman 3) we have finally gotten the huge crossover film that everyone has been waiting for, and it has delivered. But instead of widening the door for more of the same type of film, which it most definitely will do, I see Avengers' biggest plus side being as a marker for the slow demise of the classical super hero genre. No more will we see tired directors and uninformed screenwriters coming together on half-baked insults to loved characters, what Avengers has done is proved that a movie like this can work, but most importantly that it can work with a little artistic integrity behind it.
Note that I said the demise of the classical hollywood super hero film. I think we will see from now on more super hero films that will follow Nolan's theory of reinvention and re-defining the characters with a sharper auteurist twist. Say what you will about Avengers, blockbuster, crowd pleaser, whatever, it was most definitely a Whedon film and hopefully we'll see a recurrence of what Hollywood went through over 40 years ago when they decided to start giving new, interesting and relevant artists money. This frame of mind produced some really great movies like Taxi Driver. Hey Hollywood, Martin Scorsese says thanks. But seriously though, we have already seen super hero films swerving for something a lot more promising with films like Kick-Ass, Red, Super and obviously the Dark Knight trilogy.
Also, to further prove that people like what people like, not what Hollywood likes, Whedon proved himself even further with Cabin in the Woods. How frikkin' awesome was that, eh? eh? eh?
Okay, I'll stop doing that.
No seriously, though I really think he has not only proved that he can make money for his boss, but also has opened up the doors for a little more experimentation with pop-culture auteurs.
Also, does anyone else out there think he made Avengers intentionally dark? To combat 3D? Anyone?
And what do people think about a Firefly reunion? Many people hold out a hope and light a candle in their windows ever night for one, but personally I don't think it'll happen, I mean the ending of the last film was just so happy, particularly when Wash said "Hey Zoe, let's go home and be in love forever and never stupidly die because our God is a grim and pessimistic one and we can have kids and I'll teach them how to fly without any steering apparatus and which switches to flick and the importance of dinosaurs and how to grow moustaches, but only in flashbacks, and you can teach them how to kick ass and be awesome and have curly hair. Yea, let's do that. And they'll never ever ever say anything ridiculous about soaring leaves on the wind. Okay? Okay? OKAY? Good." I mean, where can you go from there?
Love!
P.S. Sorry for the dramatic blog Title 'Evil be Thou My Good'. Dunno what I was thinking. I'll get around to explaining that soon. After I HAVE RULED YOU PUNY HUMANS IN WORLD DOMINA-no, sorry, I mean next time or whatever.
Second Love!
Enjoyed your post!One question, when you say Whedon made the film dark to combat 3d,d'you mean you think he did deliberate sabotage?
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. It's rather a fanciful notion, but some scenes; the Loki escape sequence at the beginning and the Loki/Thor talk-it-out at the beginning were particularly difficult to watch. I think that it could be a sneaky means of sabotaging the 3D so as to combat and put a stop to it, at least in a small way.
DeleteIt would make sense, but I always viewed the 3d conversion as Whedon losing the battle to keep it 2d, midway during the shoot. I do know that after Avengers I swore off 3d for good, so you may in fact be right!
Deletefirst:love the blog hope you do more.second:did you see the scene after the credits?.and I regret to say people will get very sick of marvel they are making a nick furry movie and god knows how many iron man,thor,captain america.spidy movies along with the avengers I am a fan but the average person who is not will they pay to see 3 or more marvel movies a year(which will all be directed by different people)? im not saying they wont be good just they might not make as much money as they would like thus ending one or more franchises and the character will only be in the avenger movies or make a cameo in others.also sorry for the long rant but nathan fillion should of been green lantern he did the voice for so many cartoons and hes just awesome.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks very much! Yea, well as far as Spidey goes I don't think he'll be involved much, I think there's a discrepancy in the rights ownership that prevents him from being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I see your point. I agree that there most definitely will be a large amount of Avengers-fertilised Marvel movies coming out in the next few years, some of them might even be good, but on the whole, I don't have high hopes. I do, however, hold out the hope that these films will help with what is a flailing comic book industry at the moment. The idea of a group of movies with characters and storylines that crossover is very interesting, and very like how the comic books work, but ultimately it is a simplified version. My hope is that people unsatisfied with the simplicity of the stories will go on to read some of the comics. Jeph Loeb has recently published a whole bunch of colour-themed Marvel stories for different characters, and he's at least one of the best Batman writers about so I think his work could be a great intro for people into comics.
DeleteAbout Nathan Fillion, I think in theory it would have been awesome if he was Green Lantern, but in practice just look at how terrible that film was, maybe he dodged a bullet.
Thanks again!
PJD
PJD,
ReplyDeleteYou're both fantastic and fantastical. But hey! You made me smile :) so... um... more? obviously
Hey! Thanks very much. Yes, more is to come, but it will likely fluctuate on a range of things. I'm thinking about doing a blog on either Nicholas Cage or John Milton's depiction of Satan in Paradise Lost. We shall see.
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