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[Your Opinion] DC vs. Marvel movies.
9 years ago
General
Civil war just came out and I loved it. It wasn't what I was expecting, or rather it wasn't all of what I was expecting, but I am okay with that.
It got me thinking more though, particularly the comparison for the huge success that is every Marvel Studios movie and the DC cineverse movies and their less success. Just looking at gross numbers, it's not the end of the weekend and it looks like Civil war is roughly half the total gross for Batman v Superman.
Comic book movies are going to be a thing for a long time to come, in part due to the early and notable success of the Marvel films. When it used to be the case that comic movies did about the same as an summer action blockbuster Marvel movies stepped up and DC movies do not seem to be doing as well.
Why do you dear readers think that is?
What do you think Marvel is doing right that other studios aren't quite grasping? Or if you like the DC movies more, why?
As a general note, please no spoilers especially on the more recent movies.
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Personally, I think Marvel studios outright is just tied into the genre better and respond to the audience better, I think this is why they do better than the average comic book movie.
What I mean is that, I think other companies treat CB (comic book) movies as simply movies of the action genre and so they use the basic meta structure for an action film. Every 10 minutes action happens, plot is formed in such and such a way and you insert such and such archetypes.
I don't think the metric is wrong for action movies, but rather doesn't quite fit this particular source material or subject. It's sort of like someone has an octagon peg and a round hole, you can make it fit, but it seems Marvel found the octagon hole. It's not just action and action archetypes, but they focus on character more than you see in other action movies. Focusing beyond just "bad thing happens, hero has reason to do good thing"
Take for instance Spiderman. (If you dunno the origins of spiderman by now spoiler I guess.) We've seen the origin so many times at this point and generally what you get so far as spiderman's motivation is Uncle Ben dies, with great power comes great responsibility, fight crime.
It's not wrong, that's a motivation that makes sense, but in contrast in Marvel movies i've seen a character casually discuss the moral status of inaction. It goes beyond just having power, but the idea that the character believes that if you can do something and dont you are morally responsible. That is more complex than you'd seen generally before Marvel studios started making the marvel cineverse movies and in many ways it is subtle.
Avengers is my favorite movie of the Marvel ones for this reason alone, the characters are more than just different powers wrapped in spandex, they each have their own motivations, their own demons, and how those are expressed are very organic rather than formulaic.
The way Marvel writes strikes me as a cross between an action movie, a book movie, and contemporary movie. Our uncertainty in the world is reflected. The fears of terrorism. The fears of established government, all of that is addressed.
Honestly, I think Marvel is doing so damn well because they did what other studios didn't. It's a small difference but instead of taking a comic book and making it a movie, they took movies and made them like comic books.
We get story arcs, characters to follow, our hopes and fears are represented in the stories and at the end of the day you can feel better because Captain America punched Hitler, or Iron Man beat the terrorists. It gets us used to the heroes and then tackles some big issues.
On the other hand I think DC did the opposite. Honestly I think the Justice League franchise started with a blunder in and off itself. They wanted to make the movies gritty. I get that, I do. I like gritty hero stories. That's why I like Watchmen, but it does take some balance. You can't throw a shit ton of grime on a superman movie and say "that should do it." DC always had a balance, Batman vs superman, dark vs light. They make incredible foils, but if you have a gritty superman because grit sells the rest of your universe is just going to be so dark you'll want to adjust your gamma settings.
To be honest I all but lost interest in DC universe. I can't get hyped about the trailers because rather than see a glimpse of character, some depth, it's just action action character archetype, and honestly it seems that's already the better parts of the movies.
I won't go so far to say they're bad. If you like them, reader, awesome! To me however it just feels like octagon is a round hole, it mostly fits, it kinda works, but I feel like it can easily all be done so much better.
It got me thinking more though, particularly the comparison for the huge success that is every Marvel Studios movie and the DC cineverse movies and their less success. Just looking at gross numbers, it's not the end of the weekend and it looks like Civil war is roughly half the total gross for Batman v Superman.
Comic book movies are going to be a thing for a long time to come, in part due to the early and notable success of the Marvel films. When it used to be the case that comic movies did about the same as an summer action blockbuster Marvel movies stepped up and DC movies do not seem to be doing as well.
Why do you dear readers think that is?
What do you think Marvel is doing right that other studios aren't quite grasping? Or if you like the DC movies more, why?
As a general note, please no spoilers especially on the more recent movies.
___________________________________________________________________________
Personally, I think Marvel studios outright is just tied into the genre better and respond to the audience better, I think this is why they do better than the average comic book movie.
What I mean is that, I think other companies treat CB (comic book) movies as simply movies of the action genre and so they use the basic meta structure for an action film. Every 10 minutes action happens, plot is formed in such and such a way and you insert such and such archetypes.
I don't think the metric is wrong for action movies, but rather doesn't quite fit this particular source material or subject. It's sort of like someone has an octagon peg and a round hole, you can make it fit, but it seems Marvel found the octagon hole. It's not just action and action archetypes, but they focus on character more than you see in other action movies. Focusing beyond just "bad thing happens, hero has reason to do good thing"
Take for instance Spiderman. (If you dunno the origins of spiderman by now spoiler I guess.) We've seen the origin so many times at this point and generally what you get so far as spiderman's motivation is Uncle Ben dies, with great power comes great responsibility, fight crime.
It's not wrong, that's a motivation that makes sense, but in contrast in Marvel movies i've seen a character casually discuss the moral status of inaction. It goes beyond just having power, but the idea that the character believes that if you can do something and dont you are morally responsible. That is more complex than you'd seen generally before Marvel studios started making the marvel cineverse movies and in many ways it is subtle.
Avengers is my favorite movie of the Marvel ones for this reason alone, the characters are more than just different powers wrapped in spandex, they each have their own motivations, their own demons, and how those are expressed are very organic rather than formulaic.
The way Marvel writes strikes me as a cross between an action movie, a book movie, and contemporary movie. Our uncertainty in the world is reflected. The fears of terrorism. The fears of established government, all of that is addressed.
Honestly, I think Marvel is doing so damn well because they did what other studios didn't. It's a small difference but instead of taking a comic book and making it a movie, they took movies and made them like comic books.
We get story arcs, characters to follow, our hopes and fears are represented in the stories and at the end of the day you can feel better because Captain America punched Hitler, or Iron Man beat the terrorists. It gets us used to the heroes and then tackles some big issues.
On the other hand I think DC did the opposite. Honestly I think the Justice League franchise started with a blunder in and off itself. They wanted to make the movies gritty. I get that, I do. I like gritty hero stories. That's why I like Watchmen, but it does take some balance. You can't throw a shit ton of grime on a superman movie and say "that should do it." DC always had a balance, Batman vs superman, dark vs light. They make incredible foils, but if you have a gritty superman because grit sells the rest of your universe is just going to be so dark you'll want to adjust your gamma settings.
To be honest I all but lost interest in DC universe. I can't get hyped about the trailers because rather than see a glimpse of character, some depth, it's just action action character archetype, and honestly it seems that's already the better parts of the movies.
I won't go so far to say they're bad. If you like them, reader, awesome! To me however it just feels like octagon is a round hole, it mostly fits, it kinda works, but I feel like it can easily all be done so much better.
I kid I kid. Though I think the biggest thing is that successful and good are not the same thing. I genuinely enjoy both equally though as someone who read the comic books all the time, I think I can just look at the movies for what they are instead of what I expect. Not that much to contribute to the conversation I'm sure, I just wanted to say more than LOL angereh neeerds. XD
Thus I wanted to ask about success. Flat out DC movies are not as successful and so the question is why? it's not the content in terms of "comic book" because (sorry nerds) at the base of it there's not that much difference between "this guy has super powers because he's from another planet" and "this gu got a super secret serum so now he has super powers" or "this really intelligent rich guy has parent issues and now uses his personal wealth, intelligence, etc to make things and fight crime" and well..literally that same sentence applies to iron man and batman.
So it's not like the base of it is "one has better content. one is more realistic" or anything, it's not the parts but how the parts are used, and something Marvel is doing with those parts is more successful commercially.
now... to be fair... being rich and smart is a superpower I would kill for.
There are so many small things, so many little parts I love. Like a character who has a bad history with anger issues and such. It's addressed so minimally. A comment here, a pill bottle there, and yet you can still see the effect it had on his life and those around him.
Cap's situation, being misplaced in time is mentioned but not beaten into the ground. The little scene here and there, him going to damn museums to see stuff from his childhood. Making lists to learn about the new world. The loneliness, the loss, the idea that every day he gets farther and farther from his home, from what he knew.
He doesn't just deal with the issues of a homecoming vet trying to blend in, he's doing it while literally seeing what was his home fade from history. just...fucking damn there's a Captain America scene that just made me cry, in a theater. It wasn't even a proper line or anything big. It was just a small thing, a small loss, and I just couldn't handle that shit.
I think that's why they are more successful. I can see the same movie with 5 other people and all 5 of us have 5 different things we deeply love or were affected by. It's a depth that touches everyone differently.
Which marvel movies have you seen?
Moving to where I am now, away from the culture of my people and their struggles. They slowly feel so far away, the more I move forward and progress, the less I remember who I used to be and the world I came from. Sometimes I forget I'm even black.
God I love Captain America storylines. Exactly that, losing where you're from but at the same time holding your ideals and what you were taught so firmly. mmf damn dude.
Another reason why I feel DC hasn't been doing well in the movie business is they tend to rush their movies. They try to cram a while bunch of story into 2 hours that everything ends up feeling rushed. I will say they paced it nicely with all the batman movies, but everything I've seen or heard about afterwards feels like they're trying to put too much story and too many characters at once.
I will say though, that DC has done quite well for themselves in the TV series industry! Gotham, arrow, and flash are all great fun to watch! I could see them having many more great successes in the future there!
I need to check out the TV series'. I saw some gotham but couldn't get into it. It's just not my cup of tea. My big interest in batman storylines are batman at the peak of his batmanness and trying desperately to just survive. batman growing up isn't my thing and I just sort of get bored with it.
I'm not so interested in origin stories like that so really it's just a matter of subjective taste.
I think you're right with the rushing. It feels like they're reacting to Marvel, trying to set up a lot of story so they can get to tier 2, where Marvel had the time to develop out tier 1 tier 2.
It makes sense. DC has to combat movie fatigue. the bunches of origin stories from other franchises as studios fight for rights, Marvel set up it's origin movies for tier 1, but Marvel just got through tier 2, so their stories have a lot different focus and complexity than a pure origin story can bring, so DC is in a hard place of establishing a loooot of character and story to get to their own tier 2 without making it just origin stories which will just get lost in the sea of other origin stories.
Seriously, here's the origin or establishing movies for the mainstream A list superheros (so spandex and capes types) from just 2000-2016 (note this doesn't include the follow up movies for each franchise)
xmen, Spiderman (toby mcquire), daredevil, hulk, punisher, catwoman, batman begins, fantastic four, ghost rider, iron man, incredible hulk (maybe, it's sequel to 'hulk' but first time hulk is established for the MCU), Xmen origins, thor, xmen first class, green lantern, captain america, amazing spiderman, Man of steel, fantastic 4 (again), batman vs. superman (maybe since it establishes batman)
that's a lot of movies, just for these types of establishing movies, so honestly I can see how they wanna rush to part 2 to better keep up with marvel, but I think it's hurting them.
That said, I really did like the Dark Knight series. The serious, gritty atmosphere does suit Batman. And I'm more than a little tired of Spiderman being constantly rebooted.
I get way you don't do that in say a batman movie, and I don't want it in the batman movies like dark knight. but all of DC universe can't be as dark and humorless as batman. otherwise just cut the fat and make batman movies.
I know Avengers was amazing to me, and in part because Joss Whedon knows comics, he loves comics, and it feels like the movie was written out of a passion for the story not just to put butts in seats for 10$ a pop.
I dunno what to think of suicide squad. Interesting subject but this one makes me more wary because it seems to just be archetyping again, especially with Will Smith. It was a peculiar pick because Will seems to be doing the anti-hero funny stubborn fly in the face of authority thing, which is cool but definitely different from deadshot's cold, professional, professional assassin thing.
Doesn't mean it's bad, just feels more like they're setting it more as the "broody angst type" "crazy hot girl type" "sassy devil may care type" rather than the characters and that always gives me pause because it falls back into the issue of, well now that's just more an action movie that has characters we know in it.
I'm particularly worried about Quinn. I don't want her to just be the crazy fap bait for males 16-35 or whatever. She has such an interesting character with her being psychologist turned villain. Obsessed with the joker and kind of a joke, yet underneath is one of the most intelligent and brutal characters in the batman series. I don't want that to be lost in "this chick is hot, but crazy, but hot still"
maybe I'm being unfair comparing to marvel, but *shrug* it just feels to me Suicide Squad is different from DC, but not different from the genre as a whole and is doing the same thing that say Guardians of the Galaxy did, but not as well.
Actually that is super unfair to the movie, but I guess that's why I'm not as excited. The lack of showing up to now makes it hard to get hype with DC movies.
honestly if you just showed me movies from before and after the buy out I dunno that I could tell you a difference due to disney EXCEPT Marvel used some Disney rights owned stuff to make a point (singing a song from Pinocchio and other minor things.)
Marvel studios when it produced the movies in house versus before when they liscensed but production was through paramount or whatever. The movies that Marvel studios self produced are MCU marvel cinematic universe. Ironman, Thor, Avengers, etc. The marvel produced movies are all roughly the same quality (outside some CGI developments, and I couldn't tell you a difference between say Ironman and Civil War, outside of what you'd expect with time.
There is definitely absolutely totally a difference between Ironman and Daredevil or xmen anything. The difference however is Marvel produces Ironman et. al. themselves.
I haven't seen Civil War yet but am going to try and make it this weekend. It looks to be pretty promising! I have yet to see Batman v. Superman but will have to wait for it to come out on DVD before I can. To me, the movie seems to be more of a fan service than anything because comic book fans have been pitting Batman and Superman against each other since the dawn of time. It may be pretty awesome though nonetheless.
I love both DC and Marvel, you really can't go wrong with either. Some of my friends are diehard fans of one and hate the other which makes absolutely no sense to me but whatever, they are the ones missing out!
If you notice, the Marvel movies not done by Marvel (F4, Spiderman, X-men) tend to not be as good at times, which may be because of that.
DC movies are done by Warner Brothers, though. And although WB owns DC comics, there doesn't seem to be enough crossover imho.