The Glade 4.0

But we're watching comic book movies. We know these characters. We know who's supposed to live and who's supposed to die -- and that very few deaths are every permanent. We don't want them to deviate too far from the spirit of those comics because what we want to see is an interpretation of those pages on film, all cleaned up and polished for the big screen.

And that's okay.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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Bringing meta into the argument of movies feeling too safe is the fault of the viewer, not the movie. Because the same could be said for practically any popular movie franchise.

We know James Bond is going to save the day and it will involve shooting people and sleeping with women. We know that Nemo is going to get found. We know that John McClain is going to say the word "Yippie" at some point and magically survive anything, including a tactical nuclear strike. We know that Rocky is going punch someone, that there will be a training montage, and he will be victorious over the challenges he faces.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

It's no more the "fault" of the viewer than the viewer being unable to forget a giant spoiler dropped on them by the trailer.

Movies don't exist in a vacuum. One of the biggest criteria for whether or not a plot point should be played as a reveal to the audience is "Does the audience already know this? Is it part of the sale of the film to the audience?" Don't dick around with your audience and play coy for half an hour about the fact that your main character is, say, actually evil, if that's part of the premise that gets audiences into the theater in the first place.

Well now you're just changing your argument.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

No, I'm not. Part of the biggest draw for the audience if these Marvel movies is their well-publicized interconnectivity, which is what's groundbreaking about their model. But if you're selling the film based on that, you have to acknowledge that in the films' construction. You can't have it both ways: selling the films on their continuity and then ignoring that big push when the theater lights go down.

I don't see them ever ignoring that.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I concur.

Once again, while Hemsworth is perfect as Thor, he remains the straight man in his own movie. TDW was less "Thor II" than "Loki III", and the film was better for it.

Regarding Thor 2...

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Possibly the worst-kept secret in superhero moviedom is now revealed: Paul Bettany ("JARVIS") will be playing the Vision in Age of Ultron. I presume this cements the assumed origin path for Ultron of Tony Stark being responsible his creation by way of evil/screwed-up JARVIS (bringing a personal touch to the proceedings as Hank Pym is a non-entity in the movie universe, and I can't see Edgar Wright's Ant-Man movie changing that, given Pym's not the titular character).

apparently I've underestimated the appeal of a rabid, machine gun wielding, sapient space-raccoon. My wife now makes me stop and let her re-watch all the Guardians trailers and advertising. Go figure.

How could you underestimate that man? Look what you just said! "rabid, machine gun wielding, sapient SPACE-RACCOON!" So much awesome.

Meh. Star-Lord is mildly amusing, in the same way that Corsair is -- (more or less) vanilla humans caught up in cosmic Marvel affairs with naught but some allies and not-so-human gear to fend for themselves. Star-Lord also has the selfish morality thing going for him to help make him a bit interesting in the comic world. The rest, I could take or leave, basically. Despite my love of pulp, I've never understood the appeal of anthropomorphized intelligent animal characters. Adam Warlock I can recognize as an important-ish figure in cosmic Marvel, but don't care a whit about. Despite decent writers in the most recent incarnation of Guardians of the Galaxy (Dan Abnett and Brian Michael Bendis, both of whom have my respect as comic authors), none of the alien characters have ever generated even mild empathy or interest from me.

At least the original line-up from the 70's had recognizeable cosmic Marvel characters... Nova, Ronan, Silver Surfer, Captain Marvel, Thanos... I mean, ****. That's like the Avengers of space characters.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

You're still gonna go see the movie.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yeah, probably. As I said, Star-Lord amuses me, and the trailers look like they treat him favorably. And it's not like I can just skip what's probably going to end up being the biggest part of the Infinity Gauntlet setup they've been working towards since Thor.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Woah, Edgar Wright is no longer doing Ant Man.

http://io9.com/oh-crud-edgar-wright-is- ... 1580816352

Boo. I wanted to see Edgar Wright's take on the O'Grady version of Ant-Man.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Purportedly the reason he's no longer the Wright man for the job: http://www.latino-review.com/news/exclu ... er-ant-man

Aaaand Marvel just lost Drew Goddard as showrunner for their Daredevil series. What is going on over there?

http://screencrush.com/daredevil-loses-drew-goddard/

There were questions about the 'morality' of his script?

Isn't the new Antman kind of a dick?

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Raell Kromwell

Isn't the old Ant man Very much a dick?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That was something that got tacked on later. Hank Pym in the Ultimates abused his wife.

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Raell Kromwell

The new Ant-Man is all kinds of a dick. And it's a great take.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Ok, so the funny little man wanted to do the new Antman.

Marvel said no, no, no.

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Raell Kromwell

http://www.nerdist.com/2014/05/is-charl ... daredevil/

Better him than Dexter.

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Raell Kromwell