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Post by crazy_asian_man on Jul 21, 2020 14:30:50 GMT -5
In talking on another thread about experiences and ages, this thought came up...
Context is: I was teaching kids during the summer that MOS came out, and the kids actually dug it... and were far less critical than me- and it was a bit of a head=scratcher for me.
But- just as there were students of mine that grew up on Smallville as their first exposure to Superman and worship it unabashedly (I have mixed feelings on that one too) ...
It's totally not impossible that if MOS is/was a first experience of Superman that:
#1: The dark version made Supes more 'accessible' to them-
(Previous years when SR came out, I asked the students if they went to go see Superman Returns- but answers from the kids were 'no, that characters' too perfect, I can't relate to him'--- and instead Pirates of the Carribean was the rage)
#2: It could well have been like a 'first love' experience (that we all may have) with a movie at a certain age that makes certain things totally fine.
So.... (shrugging)- just as SIV was some fans' first Superman experience and have special love for that- (which certainly could have been colored by the rest), I'm getting more aware of how different contexts form an alchemy of how one experiences a movie--- and, goes back to my saying: at the end, it's all (mostly) subjective.
I actually still like and enjoy parts of MOS.... in a music video way, and maybe I can enjoy it as a 'alternate universe' Superman...
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Jul 21, 2020 18:55:44 GMT -5
Ha ha...an excellent question!
Just had to remind myself of the other drivel that was out in 2013(sorry I am cynical...but there is a lot of s**t around these days!)
Iron Man 3
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Despicable Me 2
Monsters University
Frozen
Gravity
Fast & Furious 6
Oz The Great and Powerful
Star Trek Into Darkness
Thor: The Dark World
...that's just the top 11 flicks....all of them(or mostly) fantasy based to some extent or another and all saturated with some form of CG.
As a 7 year old.....chances are that I would have been exposed to some of these other flicks(either before or after)
Which would detract from my MOS experience....because there is absolutely nothing in MOS that is not present in these other movies.
In fact Thor Dark World(which is god awful in it's own way) and Iron Man 3(which is unremarkable but not bad) feature plenty of flying sequences so MOS already has it's work cut out there to make us believe a man can fly...there are other superheroes already doing it!
And even as a 7 year old.....if I saw Gravity (which came out a few months after MOS).....it would make me forget MOS!
Superman Returns had the same problem in 2006....in terms of fantasy competition.....you said it yourself CAM......your students preferred Pirates(which is not good because those films wore out their welcome superfast!).
I have just spent the last 2 weeks watching films from 1978.....there is barely a fantasy film in sight....the closest being Piranha(lol!).
The other flicks(Days Of Heaven,Deer Hunter,Coming Home,King Of The Gypises ) are vastly superior to the drivel that featured in the 2013 top 10.....and they are firmly based in a grounded reality...….which gave STM the platform it needed to display another form of heightened reality(but still a reality of sorts) and stand out from the crowd and genuinely break new ground in several areas.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Jul 22, 2020 14:58:13 GMT -5
It’s always been that way though. Kids are usually less discerning and are entertained by surface level stuff. MOS looks “cool” and has the big cgi action spectacle they’re used to. To some of them it’s going to be seen as a classic because they saw it during formative years. It’s the same with the prequels. People who were young kids 20 years ago love them. Heck I’ve even met people who were young in 1997 and loved Batman & Robin and it’s easy to understand way.
The difference is the truly special films endure for the long term for people of all ages. STM still works for me. I also liked Howard the Duck growing up but now it’s hard not to see the warts.
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Jul 23, 2020 3:22:24 GMT -5
It’s always been that way though. Kids are usually less discerning and are entertained by surface level stuff. MOS looks “cool” and has the big cgi action spectacle they’re used to. To some of them it’s going to be seen as a classic because they saw it during formative years. It’s the same with the prequels. People who were young kids 20 years ago love them. Heck I’ve even met people who were young in 1997 and loved Batman & Robin and it’s easy to understand way. The difference is the truly special films endure for the long term for people of all ages. STM still works for me. I also liked Howard the Duck growing up but now it’s hard not to see the warts. Oh absolutely. Could be the case that the odd 7 year old in 2013 may have gone into MOS having seen only SR(perhaps)...and a litany of Marvel flicks!...2012 already had Avenger's assemble and The Dark Knight Rises In other words they were already familiar with the spectacular(in terms of fantasy). That's not MOS's fault.....it's just the reality that the likes of Snyder confront when making such flicks. Even kids going into the prequels had Potter,Matrix and Lord Of The Rings as co-competitors......in others words there is a lot more choice now then there was back in the day with STM. Conversely, there was a lot more in general quality back then(social dramas,historical,war ect) then there is now. The average 7 year old in 78' was ready to get his mind blown(outside of Star Wars and Close Encounters of course) |
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Jul 23, 2020 11:14:16 GMT -5
The MCU is one of the few things that’s going to stick for the broader audience that’s come out in the last ten years based purely on what it accomplished and how it influenced Hollywood. It’s as close as this generation of kids is going to get to their own OT Star Wars. The DCEU films simply haven’t had that kind of pop culture impact to do it on a wide scale. The last time DC did that was the dark knight trilogy. I’ve never seen a kid quoting anything in a DCEU film the way I have with STM, Batman, Dark Knight, or even the MCU. I’m sure they’re out there but it’s not something that is so ingrained that the all do it the way we did with lines from Star Wars or T2 or even something like Back To The Future. It’s because while Snyder can create visual spectacle he can’t create character moments. The most memorable stuff in his DC movies are lines people MOCK like “Save Martha” or “I Will Find Him!“
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Jul 23, 2020 15:11:56 GMT -5
The MCU is one of the few things that’s going to stick for the broader audience that’s come out in the last ten years based purely on what it accomplished and how it influenced Hollywood. It’s as close as this generation of kids is going to get to their own OT Star Wars. The DCEU films simply haven’t had that kind of pop culture impact to do it on a wide scale. The last time DC did that was the dark knight trilogy. I’ve never seen a kid quoting anything in a DCEU film the way I have with STM, Batman, Dark Knight, or even the MCU. I’m sure they’re out there but it’s not something that is so ingrained that the all do it the way we did with lines from Star Wars or T2 or even something like Back To The Future. It’s because while Snyder can create visual spectacle he can’t create character moments. The most memorable stuff in his DC movies are lines people MOCK like “Save Martha” or “I Will Find Him!“ The MCU is such a unique groundbreaking beast, that it's more like a large (I say this in a good way) big budget soap opera- with many chapters and aren't necessarily standalone- but on the other hand, the solo films have such a wide variety that it's been able to break out of the criticism that every Marvel film is stuck on a predictable formula. When I think of movie trilogies and franchises- I think in the best world, a trilogy maximizes the potential of the lead character (and its ensemble) and so by the time the trilogy/franchise is over, you feel like the best was done and finished just at the right time. With the MCU- that monster is/was so huge, that I give the movies a lot of leeway given how it's not one trilogy, but really a fictional universe where pieces have an effort to fit together properly and consistently (enough) but also work with a variety of tones and a variety of pieces that really shouldn't fit credibly in the first place (i.e. the seriousness of Captain America and Black Panther with the goofiness of Thor 3 or Antman). While it's not perfect, overall the MCU movies have had far better creative successes I feel than trilogies that had less weight on their shoulders and somehow bomb on their third film creatively (ROTJ, Raimi's Spiderman 3, Nolan's TDKR)- and.... I do have to say that I'm SO glad that (to me) Endgame delivered as their 'final chapter' --- and focused on character over action and I am a little disappointed that this didn't qualify for a 'best picture' as I feel it should have, or have gotten a 'special achievement' award.... but then again, everyone knows who Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige is- and probably will for a long time, if the world doesn't end by November or December... |
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Jul 25, 2020 13:48:47 GMT -5
Considering just how much it’s juggled over the years from stories to characters it is impressive that the MCU has worked as well as it has while the DCEU and the Fox X-men franchise crashed. I also thought of Dark Knight Rises vs Civil War. As good as Nolan’s trilogy is the Captain America trilogy had a better ending. It paid off things that had been runic from the beginning better and felt more cohesive.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Jul 26, 2020 2:08:48 GMT -5
Considering just how much it’s juggled over the years from stories to characters it is impressive that the MCU has worked as well as it has while the DCEU and the Fox X-men franchise crashed. I also thought of Dark Knight Rises vs Civil War. As good as Nolan’s trilogy is the Captain America trilogy had a better ending. It paid off things that had been runic from the beginning better and felt more cohesive. What's amazing/sad is how Singer brought the X-men back to creative glory after X-men 3.... and then sadly it crashed again immediately with Apocalypse & Dark Phoenix... Hated TDKR-- there are moments that are cool, but overall just felt that Nolan took the wrong things too seriously in that one, and gave himself a pass on the story in other things that I felt he shouldn't have. Nolan had a much easier path than I think Feige had/has, with only having to worry about one trilogy and not a universe. I wonder if with Raimi and Nolan if the summer deadlines for both SPiderman 3 and Batman 3 were the main problems that ended up with the big compromises to both films... |
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