Monker wrote:verslibre wrote:Monker wrote:THAT is good storytelling, with perfect timing in every aspect of this huge story arc.
No, the timing is questionable.
No, it's not.
Where we are right now is in the "Empire Strikes Back". What is about to come for the Marvel Universe is akin to Han being frozen in Carbonite, Luke getting his hand cut off, and Lando losing Cloud City.
Star Wars timeline references, dude? Haha. Those movies are riddled with so many errors, they resemble paper targets at a shooting range. Each of those films has such a glaringly different feel, pace and directing style, I can barely watch them.
Return of the Jedi, in particular, is a chore. It's just a bad movie.
Monker wrote:YJ mentioned "Lord of the Rings". We are at a point where the Fellowship can be broken, where Saruman makes his move on the West, where the Rings shows clear signs of corrupting Frodo.
It is time for the heroes to show their vulnerability and suffer. In EVERY great story, this happens at this point in the story arc. Then, very shortly after, the heroes rise above it to defeat the ultimate evil.
Shower us with your wisdom, Prof. Btw, did you get those last three lines from the Japanese poster for
Empire?
Monker wrote:The timing is EXACTLY as it should be to keep the audience engaged in the story and returning to the theater to see more. This type of pattern repeats itself over, and over, and over in EVERY successful dramatic story throughout the history of mankind. It is built into our psychology.
Again,
Civil War, to be depicted
properly should require two films. The same for
Ragnarok, or one 210-minute film, at least. I'm sure you'll be just fine with whatever you see put in front of you, though.
Monker wrote:Oh, really? And, how close to the books did "Lord of the Rings" keep? Not at all. Favorite characters were removed (Tom Bombadil), important details were completely removed and/or changed (how the hobbits received their swords from Tom Bombadil...and why Merry could harm the Witch-King with his). Lines were even taken from one character and given to another (Wormtongue's speech to Eowyn about her being alone were spoken by Gandalf, not Wormtongue, in the book). In fact, "The Two Towers" is COMPLETELY different since it focused more on the traveling Hobbits then on Helm's Deep.
Yeah, and we didn't get to see the Huorns and Saruman met a completely different demise. And so on. Still, using
LotR makes for a bad comparison. Here's why: those books are prose novels, not comics. Your mind produces every visual aspect when you read a prose novel. Comics are akin to movie storyboards — the combination of images and text make the medium. Storyboards are created to help block a movie out. The director can work off the storyboards and make changes before or after the filming of any given segment.
The Hobbit is a short book, the story was bloated with material from
The Silmarillion and
The Appendices and even new bits (Tauriel) to manufacture another trilogy for maximum profit. The
LotR trilogy is one long slow-moving narrative that was subsequently split into three parts. If you filmed it faithfully, scene for scene, 70% of moviegoers would walk out. To translate that story to film, there really was no option other than to make heavy changes. Jackson didn't just fuck with the story and characters, he fucked with the
topography.
Monker wrote:But, of course, people say they remained true to the spirit of the novels...and they would be right. And, they are still awesome movies telling an epic story. Therefore, remaining completely true to the comics means very little to me. Remaining true to the story they are telling NOW does. Extending those films in the way you wish would completely throw off the story arc. So, it makes absolutely no sense to do it.
And that's exactly why you keep arguing your perspective when you should just wait for
BvS and if you still give a shit, watch it. With comics, action is always a given and arcs that rely on many pages of flashback exposition are usually given their own installment. There's no need to truncate something like
Civil War because there was never a fifteen page meditation on whether or not Steve Rogers should repaint his shield purple and pink.
Monker wrote:You're wrong. They need to resolve the story arc quickly. That's they way the audience will demand it. if the story isn't resolved, the audience will say the story is going on too long and become disengaged and stop seeing the film. it's not a "rush job". it is following good story telling practiced.
Marvel knows what they are doing, and they are doing it incredibly well. Sit back and watch as they rake in the cash from eager movie goers...while DC suffers from a public that is critical and is hardly engaged at all.
I hate to break it to you, but there are a LOT of people who are looking forward to seeing Batman and Superman share the big screen for the first time. And by a lot, I mean a shit-ton.
Monker wrote:Please point to, I don't know, 5 top 20 selling movies that were written and promoted as two heroes trading blows when they first meet each other. If it happens "all the time" and is a successful strategy, you should have no problem.
Once again, you're not reading closely enough. I said it happens, and by now you should know I'm primarily referring to comics. I can't being to count how many confrontations there have been between heroes, whether by intent, accident, external forces, or whatever. Batman has fought
many other heroes (one time he decked, in clear view of other League members, the Guy Gardner version of Green Lantern and knocked him out cold for running his mouth), and he and Superman (here we go again) fought in Frank Miller's bestselling
The Dark Knight Returns, now roughly three decades old, and that is the source of the
tone for the movie, right from Zack's mouth. Note that I said
tone, because the motive in
TDKR was different.
Also, if we adhere completely to your point, then what we're going to have is something never done before: a film built on the premise of two of the most famous comics superheroes duking it out. And you think that's wrong, or boring, or weird? Hey, baby, there's a first time for everything. My Magic 8-Ball has already foreseen your buying your IMAX ticket.
Monker wrote:verslibre wrote:You saw a bit of that in Avengers when Iron Man and Thor — then joined by Cap — fought, and neither wanted to relent. One offensive move led to another. Iron Man even used Thor's lightning against him. When Thor found an element he could not destroy — Cap's shield, which is made of Vibranium — is when the battle ceased. In the film's third act, they all fought alongside each other.
Avengers had around a half dozen movies to get their audience engaged and invested in the characters BEFORE they fought each other.
Not exactly. There was a fight between two Iron Men in
Iron Man 2 (that movie WAS admittedly a rush job, and poorly scripted). Tony's drunk, Rhodes gets mad, and then we learn that the latter is somehow able to operate a suit well enough to have an impromptu showdown with his boss-buddy right in his own house. Jarvis never shuts down Rhodes' suit (which should have prevented his operation of it, anyway). Also, Rhodes takes off with it, never returns it, and shows up later as War Machine, which is another fuck-up in the Iron Man movies. In the comics, Stark and Rhodes have a falling out and Rhodes does escape with the suit, but he beefs it up (not quite Hulkbuster size, but larger than the standard suit) and kicks Tony's ass in the inevitable showdown. If that had been combined with the alcoholism storyline for
Iron Man 3, that would have more than made up for the crap we got in
Iron Man 2. Instead, they gave us faux-Mandarin.
Monker wrote:That is COMPLETELY different then BvS. BvS has some fundamental character changes to both Batman and Superman that the audience does not even understand. Explaining it in promos and teaser/trailers is a very poor way to do it. SHOW don't tell...that is a cardinal rule in writing.
We've only had one teaser, and it depicted, to the letter, what Zack told us he was going to do. More teasers, and trailers, are scheduled and the rest of the story will become more apparent.
Monker wrote:People are so well invested in the characters in Marvel that they should be ready to show a death. Imagine if Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman/Aquaman DIED in BvS. To do that is almost, but not quote, as big of a mistake as BvS is.
And why are they so "well invested"? Maybe it's because they're eight movies into the MCU (not even counting
Incredible Hulk), and the second DCCU installment is being fine-tuned, and the ball is rolling on the third DCCU film,
Suicide Squad. Patience, grasshopper.