Monday, December 05, 2016

Ask Me Anything #59



This "Ask Me Anything" closes out the year, a time of looking back and a time of pondering what lies ahead. Ask me anything you want.  Anything except what is happening with the Milestone relaunch, because I don't have an answer for you beyond "it's still moving forward."

Questions can be posted in the comments section below, and I'll either answer them there, or in a separate post sometime later in the month.

I've been asked a lot of good, thought provoking questions in the past as well as some really banal ones, all of which I tried to answer. You can see the previous questions by visiting Ask Me Anything  #1#2 ,  #3#4#5#6 , #7 , #8#9,  #10,  #11,  #12 , #13#14,  #15 , #16#17 , #18 , #19,  #20,  #21#22,  #23#24#25#26#27#28#29#30#31#32#33#34#35#36#37#38#39#40#41#42,  #43#44#45,  #46#47,  #48#49,  #50,  #51#52 , #53#54#55#56,  #57, and #58.

Answers not found following the questions can be found in the archives section for each associated month under Ask Me Anything.

Now ask away. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

(I apologize in advance for the long post)

1)How do you think a comic book movie should be done?

We live in a world where comic book movies are a HUGE thing (i think we get about 5 a year) and they are all over the place when it comes to style (Marvel being more comedic in tone while DC tends to be more dark and serious). Each has their strengths and weaknesses. I feel Marvel Tends to ruin climactic moments with comedy despite their great story telling while DC certainly makes us feel like they are in serious danger, but isnt for the younger audience.

A key example of this would be Iron-man 3. At the end of the movie you have that REALLY cool scene where Tony is jumping from suit to suit, just a fantastic action sequence, it comes to that final stand off with the bad guy, he summons his final suit and.....it flys into a pole and breaks apart and then he uses it to take the guy out. Marvel, at least to me, tends to ruin these awesome action sequences or suspenseful moments with comedy. I wont lie, in the scene i mentioned about i laughed but i feel it took away from the end end result since the action and suspense decreases a bit with comedy in it.

2) Do you think Movies being in a shared universe is a good thing or a bad thing?

While i love the universes we are given cause i love heroes, i am worried that this is a bad thing in the long wrong. Superheroes can last forever in comics because they dont really age, the stories just go on forever and the artists draw them as such. That is why Superman and batman (who just recently had there 75th anniversary) are still young in the comics. However in the movies, lets RDJ dies, suddenly we get a new looking Ironman and we have to act like nothing happened. I just feel that despite the money they make, Marvel and DC both have massive plans that are years out and if something goes wrong these plans are more or less done.

On the flip side, The first spiderman films (starring toby) are absolutely amazing (minus number 3 but even that wasnt...AWFUL) and they ended so it is in its own little bubble.

John Rozum said...

1. I think it all depends on the property itself. Some of them lend themselves more to comedic moments than others, but I actually like the comedic aspects. I think it's one of the reasons Marvel is super successful with their movies while DC isn't. Marvel has embraced the more colorful, fantastic aspect of their superheroes, which means also admitting that some of those aspects are a bit goofy. Warner Brothers, on the other hand seems to be almost embarrassed that they're making movies about colorful costumed superheroes, so instead has removed the colorful, and anything else fun about them. I enjoyed Nolan's Batman trilogy (particularly the Dark Knight). While I admired his attempt to establish Batman as something that could exist in the real world, I don't think it was a wise decision to continue with that model as it doesn't work with the other superheroes in DC's pantheon. Dark Superman is nothing I have an interest in seeing. The only post-Nolan DC movie I have any interest in is Wonder Woman. My feeling is if you're going to be making these comic book movies, embrace them for what they are and fill them with awe inspiring spectacle.

2. Shared Universe movies are something I don't mind in theory. I loved the Universal horror movies of the 1930s-1940s which were a shared universe phenomenon (probably the first). I don't have high hopes at their new attempt to do this. I think it's worked really well for Marvel. Not only are they building a successful brand with it, but they are getting people to see movies they might otherwise skip (Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy) by making every part of that shared universe seem indispensable towards enjoying it as a whole. They also did it wisely by introducing their characters individually before integrating them.

DS attempts at this only feel like a cash grab in trying to catch up to what Marvel has done and replicate that success, but I think it's probably too late for them. With the overabundance of super hero movies set to clog movie theaters, the spectacle will no longer be so special, and I don't think people who are now comfortable in the Marvel cinematic universe are going to want to invest themselves in a new one. I think the over saturation will eventually bring even Marvel's output to a trickle in not complete halt.

As for switching actors. It doesn't bother me at all. James Rhodes was recast by Iron Man 2. Spider-Man is on his third incarnation, with dead villains recast and resurrected, too. These companies are invested in the characters, not the actors. It's actually not that much different than having artists switch in the comics.