TTRPGWhiz

I literally wrote “not necessarily yours, Shard”. As for the rest, again, if people are getting their movie quality tips from junk sources, that’s on them. I’ve never once seen any of the reviews that I’ve read engaging in that kind of verbatim text copying. Fake accounts writing undermining posts isn’t the same thing as paying an actual critic to write a favorable review. That’s a wild comparison.

The Marvels, since that was the mentioned example, has a 50 on Metacritic, with about as many “average” reviews as positive, and a third of that negative. No fan voting, no YT snake oil salesmen. Who is one professional film critic whose reviews are consistently much more positive than the average? And how does this prove payola and not just a “glass half full” perspective?* This idea (not necessarily yours, Shard) that you can’t trust critics from newspapers and magazines but people like CriticalDrinker are here to show you the truth, is mind boggling to me. Maybe there is some truth to studios “buying” good press with access. But anyone who takes their cues from Comicsgate-adjacent “critics” (aka, “some dude with a YouTube channel”) is probably predisposed toward a worldview that places them atop a pile of “sleeping sheeple”, or whatever adorable self-important phrase is in vogue on the social media platforms they canoodle on. “Comics fans”** increasingly treat giant blockbuster movies based on the things they claim to love like indie bands that made it big, except even those indie fans would have gotten over it after 17 years. I’d be interested to see any news story about studios paying movie critics for positive reviews. AFAIK there are two or three, and they’re explicitly about independent movies. *I looked at the critic profile for Molly Freeman, who gave The Marvels its highest weighted score with a 90. Molly also gave Brave New World a 40. Her average review score is a 59. Does Molly seem like a paid critic? **Almost every time someone comes here with negative opinions about a movie based on something they say they care about, they also mention that “I haven’t read a comic in 15 years, ever since [insert silly reason].” These movies aren’t for you. Comics fandom is about five percent of MCU fandom. Get over it.

It’s wild that this isn’t the default take.

Yeah there was a bit of a boom in studios mining the indies for material. You still see a few here and there, but I think most of that wave is over, especially since TV is a more natural fit for adapting comics series. There are a few characters in that list that I think are probably more popular than some MCU headliners. Hellboy vs. Shang-Chi, for example.

Men in Black, 300, Kingsman, Edge of Tomorrow, Wanted, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Red, Road to Perdition, Sin City, 2 Guns, Surrogates, Timecop, Atomic Blonde, RIPD, 30 Days of Night, From Hell, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Crow, The Mask, Ghost World, American Splendor, Hellboy, Barb Wire, Cowboys & Aliens, Tank Girl, A History of Violence, Josie and the Pussycats, Judge Dredd (x2), Kick-Ass, Richie Rich, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Casper, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I just don't think the filmmakers were so beholden to the comics storyline that these things made much difference.

I dunno. They managed to tell a version of the Infinity War saga without Adam Warlock, Eternity, Magus, Doom, Kang...I can't imagine Nebula was super important to the story they were telling (though she did end up with the MCU's best start-to-finish character arc).

The Brood Saga is good stuff. Describing Chris Claremont as a 'giant' is a choice. I think generally, fans of Carol Danvers prefer her more recent adventures to things like, "I woke up suddenly pregnant and gave birth to the clone of the dude who assaulted me".

The Guardians movie was made because A) someone in Marvel's screenwriting shop chose that from the stack of teams they had rights to, and B) they needed a team in space. The first few drafts didn't even necessarily include what became the team on screen; at one point, it was the OG Guardians. There is very little evidence to suggest that movies get made because the comics do well; there is also very little evidence to suggest that if a comic doesn't 'sell' (Ironheart), then any adaptation is doomed to failure because the book didn't have an audience.

I guess that’s just a different sort of metrics. To me if I enjoy something, that equates to being better than average. Call that B- and up. Not bad also suggests not good; aka, “average”. Call that “C- to C+”. Below that you get to your “bads” (Ds) and “terribles” (Fs). I don’t think I’ve ever in my life assigned a letter grade to a movie, but it helps to organize thoughts, I suppose. I don’t want to imagine the world where critic reviews have any more influence than they already seem to. Especially if we expand “critic” to include random YouTubers.

This explains so much about how these forums work. ETA: lol, never disappoints. Critical Drinker’s review is out, it takes him exactly 63 seconds to make a disparaging remark about “modern feminism”. These takes are all so boring.

I mean, at a certain point in life you stop being amazed by movies. It’s some real goalpost moving to look at a C+ review and think, “man, I remember when a B+ was the average…”

Feels like this convo has reached a nadir, no?

Another super normal comic book movie thread.

Griping that Sue Storm should be more like the version that puts up with her husband talking down to her is wild. My guess it that the Surfer is Shalla Bal and not Norrin Radd b/c this universe is (clearly) not the MCU, so after Galactus eats this planet and they get assimilated to the 'other' universe, there's a chance for 'our" Surfer to show up.

This is starting to feel more and more like the Secret Wars / universe incursion storyline. Most of these folks will probably be playing those roles for the last time. A Doctor Doom plot being the method by which the FF join the fray is pretty perfect. Kinda hoping Galactus eats their Earth and they need a new one.

I am very familiar with the comics lol. It's why I didn't refer to this dude's first trailer appearance as "Bulletproof Bob (?)" 😅

That Sentry spoiler is massive, might want to rethink that one.

https://deadline.com/gallery/avengers-doomsday-cast-photos-marvel/

For sure, the implication that there just *has* to always be a Captain America is pretty weird. Like, who is clamoring for that? In-universe or out?

I think the Viltrumites::CoH Archetypes as D&D Monsters::Classes. They're stat blocks, not character sheets. In other words, every Viltrumite we've seen so far is an AV, and they don't have to play by character creation rules.

I haven’t seen it.

My point was and is that it's regrettable that every conversation on this sub about these movies inevitably (and sometimes immediately) becomes "big company does bad thing to IP I like / why do these movies cost more but perform worse". It's like starting a conversation with, "Hey, there's a new Captain America movie coming out", and someone nearby rushing over and shouting "DISNEY HAS RUINED MY ADULTHOOD, LET ME SHOW YOU SOME SPREADSHEETS" at you. People are of course free to discuss "the industry" however they want; other people are also free to pine for the days when the biggest debate was about Bat-nipples.

"My money" stops being "my money" when I give it to someone else. Just like anyone's money. I don't pay Disney to make more movies; I pay Disney to watch the movie(s) they already made. Maybe that's voting with my wallet and sending a signal to Disney that I, personally, would like more of the kind of movies I just paid for. But that's not really how any of that works (I don't know what I think of a movie until after I've seen it; Disney doesn't care what I, personally, do with my money). People are of course "allowed" to discuss corporate finances or whatever else catches their interest. My opinion is that I find it lamentable that every thread about MCU movies in this sub inevitably turns into these armchair business analyses.

Ha, fair’s fair. I mean if a single sentence of the budget convos was “and they used MY TAX DOLLARS!”, I’d feel a bit more petard-hoisted. I stand by my opinion that it’s weird to care about movie budgets (or box office, frankly) if it’s not your money. 🤷🏻‍♂️