MugiwaraCole
Member
I never want to meet the monsters who got through Peter repeatedly screaming "NOOOOOO" as he watched Yondu die in front of him without so much as choking up.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
"What writers should learn from Wonder Woman"
- Thread starter WrenchNinja
- Start date
hipsterpants
Member
Me lol. The constant barrage of unfunny jokes ruined any emotional connection I had with any of the characters by the end of the movie.
It absolutely is not. The scene has 12 separate characters with different personalities all interacting with each other. Most of them are good natured people and most of them are friends, just divided across a line. Some parts are serious, like Tony and Cap, because they're legitimately angry at each other. Others are lighter, like Hawkeye and BW, because they care about each other and no way in hell are they gonna really try and harm each other. So when BW is serious at the end, it's cause she's not fighting her best friend anymore - she's fighting one of the few characters there who is angry as hell and actually trying to kill someone. A giant setpiece involving that many characters is going to be 'tonally inconsistent' cause they don't all hate each other, and therefore have different motivations for being there.
If you wanna criticise AoU, that's fine. That's an entirely different beast.
Dark knight.
Subpar Spatula
Banned
MCU movies just don't do it well. Another really good example of this is in Rogue One (I know not, MCU but just to illustrate):
people thought it was good when they completed their tasks in the third act. Yes, story wise it was good cause the plans were stolen and yadda yadda the rest is history, but it's quite obvious audiences didn't care about the process of how they did it. All that was needed was a line that went from Point A (objective / goal / task) to Point B (completion of task). They could have emailed it and people wouldn't care because something was finished so the logic behind the process doesn't matter because it was done so it arguably worked story wise.
A lot of movies do this like Man of Steel:
Zod wants to take over Earth because of some predisposed genetic imprint. Yes, it makes sense but it's also very simple and doesn't really matter to the story because the story isn't about that and a world ending event needs a world ending reason.
Motive and reasoning is a lot like Carl Sagan's quote: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Definitely agreed with you that his criticms of Civil War isn't entirely fair considering there are many scenes, I can think of the bombing scene at the UN and the end battle, that are completely played straight and emotional. But his critique does sum up why I am entertained but not affected by Marvel Films.
In that sense, I fear even more than I already do for Justice League considering they've been marketing themselves as basically bathing in what I understand as Bathos.
Yup, hear hear
MugiwaraCole
Member
This guy gets it.
I liked Winter Soldier but No Man's Land in Wonder Woman pushes it above TWS for me.
Not a single comicbook movie has such an emotionally resonant scene. Simply the most heroic scene I've seen in these movies.
I loved the movie, but the
framing of his knick knacks and some of the jokes during the funeral scene for Yondu
Subpar Spatula
Banned
Again, these are simple explanations when the backdrop is them literally being apprehended to stand trial or go directly to prison. Their motivations for being there are to either help people escape or capture them. Like, what should I be feeling or thinking during that entire set piece? That's the problem, no one knows.
Also
we barely see Peter and Yondu interact in both movies. And when they did in the first it was mostly antagonistic towards each other. It was hard to really care about that relationship.
I mean what do you think is going to happen when you have 12 characters with all different reasons and relationships driving why they're in this fight at all? And the only one there who has any genuine anger in that entire fight is Black Panther. Is Spider-Man's personal and emotional investment in that conflict going to be anywhere near the same as Cap's? There isn't going to be one solid one tone through that whole sequence. There inherently can't be. It's a bunch of friends (and some newbies) wrestling in the mud. And right at the end, their spectacular attempts to undermine one another's abilities slip up goes dearly wrong, alongside the people who willfully stay behind so that Cap and Bucky can get out.
MugiwaraCole
Member
1) That's weird.
2) I'm not even talking about the funeral. Just his death. There were no jokes. No gags. Just a guy watching the man who raised him die in the vacuum of space after killing his asshole biological father.
You being unable to dive into the deeper relationships at play there is huh.
"Either helping people escape or capturing them."
It's like you're a renowned film critic right up to the moment these films try to do something sincere. Then it's "oh no, jokes, contrasting character motivations, pick one Mahvel!"
This too, but I could at least kinda see that father son relationship shining through there since my dad and I fight a lot too.
I don't think it's weird. I remember the air in the audience being slightly confused tonally when the camera lingered on some of the funny ridiculous knick knacks there were. Will have to rewatch the scene to better illustrate what bothered me.
I definitely remember being shocked and slightly touched by Yondu's death, but due to the fact that throughout most of the sequel Peter shared maybe less than ten minutes of screentime with Yondu it left me far less affected emotionally than in Wonder Woman.
Also are we just openly spoiling GotG2 now?
Go with the flow? That scene has moments of drama, moments of thrill, and moments of levity. It's not the only movie that has dynamic scenes like that. If you want a dramatic fight scene that is emotionally consistent throughout, CW has one at the end of the film.
I think that was an homage to an old comic, I thought it was funny
Subpar Spatula
Banned
You do know you're not actually refuting my critisisms right?
Dash_Riprock
Member
The irony (and stupidity) of this post is hilarious considering what happened behind the scenes at BvS and what is still happening at the DCEU now regardless of WW.
I think that's overly cynical. Sure there are similarities but the two characters, their histories and origins, motivations, what they stand for, and how they connect with others and the modern world (and why they connect with them the way they do) is so completely different.
I think there's more in common thematically between Iron Man (the first) and Doctor Strange. Their demons and disabilities are different, but they hit essentially all of the same beats.
AuthenticM
Member
completely agree
Poor GRIMES
Banned
Is PopMovie-Gaf always this..........passionate. lol
PeskyToaster
Member
Is bathos the fuckin word of the day or something
BadAss2961
Member
Title's a bit over the top, putting undue pressure on Wonder Woman. But it's ultimately spot-on in the vacuum of modern superhero movies.
Should be more like "what writers should STOP doing - starring the MCU."
Comic book movies are serious fucking business
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
He also criticizes the DCEU movies in his other videos. The movies he used as an example are movies that had strong potential to be more.
Sure. Its definitely cynical. But both follow a lot of similar beats.
Both have a plot set during a world war about disabling a secret german weapons facility that is interested in otherworldly power. Both have a secondary villan that takes up much of the screen time only to reveal the real villan (Red Scull/Aries) at the end for a final confrontation.
Both Cap and Dianna have their initial heroic urges tempered by those around them until they ultimately have their comming of age moments by engaging in direct combat.
Both start in places untouched by war and have the protagonist bought into the fight by an attractive outsider (Peggy/SteveT) who is very progressive for the time.
Both feature shots of their hero riding into battle with germans (Cap on a motorbike, Diana on a Horse) while focusing on the shield on their back. In general Wonder Woman's shield is the most prominent of her many artifacts in marketing vs say the lasso of truth ect.
Actually looking back, Im suprised at how similar Man of Steal felt to Iron Man. However thats a different conversation.
The entire end sequence of GOTG2 was very effective for me. It really makes the entire argument that the MCU lacks sincerity feel laughable.
Chmpocalypse
Blizzard
Rarely is the instant shitpost so full of shit. Bravo.
This thread is a bit of a tire fire, but I generally agree with the points made in the video, and am pretty sure that I said something similar about the MCU films in one of the Wonder Woman related threads opening weekend.
I don't think that Wonder Woman is the second coming of superhero storytelling, but it did manage to do several things right. Diana was allowed to be genuinely heroic. They avoided that "born sexy yesterday" trope that we had a thread about a month or two back. While Ares is yet another in a long line of underdeveloped superhero film villains, he was at least allowed to be menacing without having said menace undercut by jokes. Most importantly, we finally had a confident, optimistic hero in the DCEU, and it was done in a way that didn't completely reject what came before. This still felt like a DCEU film. Just a good one.
I don't think that Wonder Woman is the second coming of superhero storytelling, but it did manage to do several things right. Diana was allowed to be genuinely heroic. They avoided that "born sexy yesterday" trope that we had a thread about a month or two back. While Ares is yet another in a long line of underdeveloped superhero film villains, he was at least allowed to be menacing without having said menace undercut by jokes. Most importantly, we finally had a confident, optimistic hero in the DCEU, and it was done in a way that didn't completely reject what came before. This still felt like a DCEU film. Just a good one.
Calm waterfall
Banned
The snark and jokes all the time in the MCU takes away from the seriousness of the situation and make characters jokes.
The Joker a great character, his delivery was creepy more than funny. He never stopped being dangerous for one second while Marvel villains jokes fall flat and crap on their character. As far as the "drama" of civil war all I have to say is lol. The made up drama in civil fell flat because of dumb plot and conclusion.
MugiwaraCole
Member
I am. I did there. And earlier.
Your mind is just made up.
Right. That entire third act was emotional. Jokes don't undercut that. Acting like general audiences weren't at all touched by it is a step too far, too.
"The air in the theater was confused." What does that even mean? Lmfao
It means people in my theater had confused chuckles and laughter at points during a funeral scene. Of course, that's just anecdotal evidence, but I mean so is yours.
I'm also not saying that general audiences weren't touched at all. In fact, I love the movie and the way it handles the relationships between pretty much all of the characters for the most part. I'm just saying it would be even better if the frequency and placement of the jokes were different to let certain emotional scenes speak for itself.
Honestly the more and more it's used, the harder I find the "jokes" argument to be taken seriously. It really feels like the people who get hung up on it either get tripped up on the smallest things or just wants all super serious all the time. Like people know conversations in the real world aren't just one tone?
Right? Like people have had conversations that have begun angry or serious and ended in levity?
Right?
Like no one goes: "Oh man that was a great conversation but that joke you made at the end just voided everything you just said or did."
No one.
Right? Like people have had conversations that have begun angry or serious and ended in levity?
Right?
Like no one goes: "Oh man that was a great conversation but that joke you made at the end just voided everything you just said or did."
No one.
MugiwaraCole
Member
You can laugh during a funeral scene and still be touche-...you guys know humans are capable of feeling more than one emotion at a time, right? Those audience members weren't confused.
There are plenty of scenes they let breathe on their own with no humor. Them not doing that in all the scenes that you want them to do that in is, meh.
That's the funniest thing about it. I get they're movies and they're fictional, but, what world are we living in where tone is one thing or another all the gotdamn time?
Monocle
Member
Brutal.
Yes, I'm the meh one for not wanting jokes during a funeral scene.
I've been wanting to rewatch it. I saw it only once, but I was honestly pretty bored -- I couldn't care about what was going on. While I was watching it there was nothing that really stuck out as bad, but I could not get into the story for the life of me.
It's the only Marvel movie where my take on it is vastly different than the majority of CBM fans. Maybe if I see it again now, my opinion will differ?
MugiwaraCole
Member
Yes. You are.
Hell, they play Sam tapping Steve when he notices Sharon step to the podium during Peggy's funeral for laughs. The weight of Steve's pain and Sharon's inspiring words aren't lessened by it. It's just a silent " oh shit, bro, look!" moment that happens, and then it passes.
Like in real life.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Audiences will laugh at sad scenes if it's not done properly.