Of possible interest to fans of superhero movies?

[TheOtherTed]

Just watched the following interview blurb with Scott Menzel (no, I don't know who he is).  He touches tangentially on the "disconnect" that can exist between the writing and/or directing for a character, and the actor/actress hired to play the character.  It made me realize why I'm not fully on board with the D&D movie with Chris Pine, and cemented why Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor didn't fly well with me.  IMO neither actor "is" the character they play, but not for want of their skills as actors.

 

I'm not a fan of superheroes in any kind of genre (comics, movies, series, even games), so maybe people here will glean more from it than me.

 

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 3/12/2023 at 10:44 PM, TheOtherTed said:

I'm not a fan of superheroes in any kind of genre

 

I gotta ask: how are you playing COH with this preference?

 

I'm not far behind you myself, but I'm just curious what your thoughts are.

[biostem]

I chalk a lot up to how someone first experiences a particular genre - if you saw Flash Gordon serials first, then *that* is generally how you perceive space operas.  If you saw Star Trek first, it's going to be a whole lot different.  Similarly, if your first experience with Superman was an actual comic, then your perceptions and expectations will be a lot different than if you first saw the character in the Christopher Reeves films.  I'd also imagine someone first seeing Batman portrayed by Adam West would have drastically different expectations than if their first time seeing him was in the 90s animated series or via Ben Affleck's depiction.  Either way, anytime a person is filtering a portrayal of a character, be it as the artist drawing a comic or an actor interpreting a script and a director's instructions, there's going to be some crucial first impression that forever dictates what the audience takes from the experience...

Edited March 14, 2023 by biostem

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

I chalk a lot up to how someone first experiences a particular genre - ... I'd also imagine someone first seeing Batman portrayed by Adam West would have drastically different expectations than if their first time seeing him was in the 90s animated series or via Ben Affleck's depiction. 

Interesting that you bring that up.  I grew up with the 1960s Batman in early reruns. It became the definition of Batman on TV or movie until 1989.  The "Bright Knight" interpretation was in Superfriends and multiple Batman animated projects into the mid-1980s.  During this time, pretty much any comic with Batman that I saw was also the Bright Knight (probably peddling Hostess Twinkies).  It was, I thought, the actual Batman.   A couple of years before the live action 1989 movie, we were staying at a friend's house while on vacation.  On their coffee table was a copy of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight.  I picked it up, and couldn't put it down.  This was a "bizarre" interpretation of Batman to my thinking (or rather my conditioning), a violent, dark take on a character I thought I knew.  Even the artwork felt raw and violent.  I don't know why, but I immediately loved it.  If anything it seemed to explain the story I heard that the original Batman comics had him carrying a gun (I was unaware at the time that even the violent Batman didn't carry one.)  When Michael Keaton's take on the character came out, I found it a fusion of elements of both the Bright Knight and the Dark Knight, though leaning to the latter.   I still have a soft spot for the Adam West interpretation, I always will, but I don't see that as anything more than a humorous characterization now.

[TheOtherTed]

8 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

I gotta ask: how are you playing COH with this preference?

I started playing because I was looking for "something different" from the usual tropey fantasy or sci-fi video games.  When I first found this game back in 2006, I rolled my eyes at it - and then realized that my eye-rolling was a good indicator that, for better or worse, this game would likely be "something different."

 

I stayed because of the mechanics, the diversity between and within ATs, and, in no small part, the player base.  All that said, my characters in this game are either "real people" in strange circumstances, or modern interpretations of mythological figures, or parodies of the genre or the game itself.

 

As for my general "benign neglect" of the superhero genre, I do have one weakness, and that's Batman.  Couldn't give a living fig about Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, or the Avengers, but through a process that parallels Techwright's experiences above, I fell hard for Batman when the Burton/Keaton movie dropped.  Only for me, the turning point was a friend's description of "The Killing Joke" when I erroneously claimed that Batman would be better as a light-hearted parody.  Holy carp, Batman, things got real!

 

I keep thinking I should read "The Killing Joke" myself, but somehow, for some reason or another, I just never got around to it.