So, I hear this criticism thrown around a lot. "Marvel takes no risks" or "Marvel plays it safe all the time." or "Marvel just does the same thing over and over. I feel that there's 3 kinds of risks Marvel movies can take.
1. Narrative - Risking the narrative by telling an unconventional, which hurts the narrative if not pulled off correctly.
2. Intelligence Something that challenges the viewer intellectually on some level
3. Comfort - utilizing story that risk making the audience uncomfortable on some level, potentially inciting offense
I keep 2 and 3 distinct for reasons I'll explain in a bit, but I think 1 is going to be discussed the most, so I'll tackle it first and most.
1. Narrative
I think of it as sort of a half truth. The biggest thing that I see in Marvel movies is that they adhere to the golden triad of Comedy-Drama-Action extremely closely. I wonder if that was always the plan, but after the incredible success of Iron Man, whose a character that the triad worked extremely well with, they decided to make that the template that other movies would be made from. Now, it's arguable that those traits are ubiquitous to nearly every blockbuster movie because their such abstract concepts, but I feel that something like...say, Fury Road, even though it definitely has silly humor ("I got the bloodbag's boot!), it has a different feel from Marvel, and Marvel has a different feel to how it flows between it's tension points, relief points, and action sequences.
Still, I feel it's debatable how detrimental that actually is. One one hand, it's formulaic and I don't know if it fits all characters the way it does Tony Stark. Steve Rogers isn't a smart ass like Tony, nor is Black Widow (or atleast she wasn't in her first few appearances), Thor's supposed to be a bit more stupid but earnest..and Marvel plays into that as well for their smartass humor. The action parts feel more distinct, because characters have different powers, but because of the plot stucture they adhere to and the genre they're set in, every movie has to end with a big climactic fight. Some will argue "Well, duh, it's superheroes, super powers being used for fighting is to be expected" and there is merit to that...but at the same time, the climax of Doctor Strange was him getting helplessly killed over and over again, so maybe there is wiggle room to do the climaxes in a none traditional manner. And the drama is obviously the most distictive part of all the movies. None of the characters really have the same kinds of crisis. The closest is Tony's and Strange's character arcs from going rich, arrogant shitheel to nice guys, and there are substantial differences even there.
Speaking more broadly, there isn't a marvel movie I can think of that didn't have unique substances to it. Captain America's films seem to take changes of genre as they go on, from somewhat corny pastime war movie (first avenger), to espionage action (Winter Soldier), to the more fantastical epic tragedy (Civil War). Doctor Strange introduced psychedelic magic to the MCU, Thor's movies do the whole space opera thing, and Guardians of the Galaxy have a distinct flavor of wacky comedy compared to the rest of the universe, Antman was structured like a heist film...
They're all built on the same comedy-drama-action triad foundation, but each consistently tries out and brings new things to the overall universe. I would say that Civil War is the riskiest film they've taken in terms of narrative. For one, this is a transformative moment for all the Avengers by having them turn against each other. This could have ended VERY badly because if they flubbed the character motivations, then they would have damaged the characters as a whole. If Tony had been acting like a stupid asshole instead of a guilt ridden guy whose trying to keep his friends together, or if Steve had acted like a self righteous douchebag instead of a guy torn between several people he cares for, this wouldn't have just resulted in one bad movie, it'd have gone back in time, hurt all the previous movies he was in, and then left a stink on the future movies he was in. Marvel would have had to work hard to fix the issues it caused in the future movies. But they pulled it off and we were left with a good character drama between two differing but neither villainous people. That seems like it was a risk to me.
Additionally, Winter Soldier had them blow up all of Shield. Which while that may not have been THAT big a game changer in the movies, it was certainly interesting seeing the creative solutions that Agents of Shield came up with to keep their premise justified.
2. Intelligence
So the other complaint is that the movies are brainless popcorn flicks. The cinematic junkfood. Well, certainly, I can think of a number of more interesting movies with more intelligent themes going on. Still, I wouldn't say it's outright brainless. I already used Civil War as an example (though I think it's definitely interesting to talk about it's themes more than any other marvel movie). However, for the sake of novelty, I think the much maligned Age of Ultron has probably the most thought provoking themes after Civil War. A word that comes up often in that movie is "Monster". At some point, every Avenger other than Hawkeye describes themselves as such. On one hand, it's somewhat flimsy. Ultron literally wants to destroy the world, and even if you think some qualities of the avengers are questionable, they're still the heroes that try to save people. Still, it's Tony's fault that Ultron got made....yet when he acts on those same instincts a second time, the benevolent Vision was made. Yet is Vision, who is very inhuman and in Civil War goes on to be the only one of the avengers to actually critically wound another, a kind of monster in and of himself? Is what Tony did the actions of a reckless person a danger to society, or was ultron just a particularly disasterous mistake that happened in the natural progress of science? What about Wanda and Quicksilver's redemption stories after helping bring ultron into the world. Is Cap someone who naturally seeks out war, despite being supposedly for peace? How do we peg Black Widow's betrayal when she pushes Banner down a hole to bring out Hulk, when his crisis is that his only value is as a monster and his human part is irrelevant? It's a theme that puts the microscope on each avenger in a somewhat uncomfortable way, each of them unique. It's not altogether elegantly done, as the movie is somewhat unpolished in many ways of it's writing, but it's probably the one I keep coming back to the most in terms of thinking about what it's actually about.
That said, Age of Ultron and Civil War are the only ones I feel I can personally say this about. Maybe Winter Soldier as well, with it's themes of Surveillance, though I feel it didn't do anything particularly good with it. It's not that I think the other films are dumb, exactly, but their mostly character drama's. The intelligence of Guardiants of the Galaxy, for example, is in how it writes the emotional core of the movie, but because it's tackling a complex idea. That's 3 out of 14 films thus far, if we're being generous. Not the greatest track record, but it's not like they ignore it entirely either. I feel the smartest of the Marvel Cinematic universe is probably Jessica Jones though. Kilgrave is rape culture personified, but they still made him feel like a completely natural character. That's something a very multifaceted concept for which there can be a lot of discussion over.
3. Comfort
Lastly, we get to the part where we challenge to make the audience uncomfortable. I feel like this point is intermingled with 2, but distinct. For example, the Luke Cage series is not particularly well written imo (atleast the second half. The first half I enjoyed a lot). However, it is a show unlike any other: a Street level superhero show with a nearly entirely black cast, addressing current social problems with black people. That concept alone isn't wrestling with anything inherently intelligent, but this type of power fantasy is something that isn't done because conventional wisdom is that it makes white people uncomfortable. And it does, though that's probably a smaller percentage of people than most. (Atleast theoretically. You never know in Trump's America) To this, I myself complained about how Marvel consistently made the protagonists of their movies white, straight, cisgendered men pretty much constantly when there were other superheroes they could bring in, or else make some white heroes black or something. Marvel's TV's stuff is much better with this. Jessica Jones addressed rape culture (I know I mentioned this in 2, but I was addressing HOW they wrote it was intelligent, while here the point is the inherent uncomfortable nature of addressing rape culture), Luke Cage tackles black problems, and Daredevil established dark elements that simply weren't in the grander, lighter marvel movies.
On the other hand, phase 3 has Black Panther, which too will have an all black cast and Captain Marvel, which stars it's first female superhero protagonist.
On a less socially charged tone, Guardians of the Galaxy represents a risk of audience alienation in terms of silliness. A talking racoon and a tree that repeats it's own name endlessly? That's something that could have easily turned away audiences. Perhaps not made them 'uncomfortable', but made them feel like the subject material wasn't for them. So I think GotG qualifies as a risk in that regard.
But how much of a risk is it, precisely? The thing about Marvel is that it feels like it's reached "Too big to fail" capacity. Only 2 and 3 are more in terms of audience alienating concepts than 1 is, and one has to wonder, what audience can Marvel alienate that would actually hurt it? I mean, by definition, it feels like a risk should involve some danger of loss of something. In terms of making movies, once you get passed the risk of hurting the story itself (which is what 1 is), the only thing you have left to lose is your audience.
But marvel's seal of quality is such that it feels like there is nothing they can actually do to lose a significant enough portion of their audience. Which is perhaps why we are getting Black Panther and Captain Marvel films only now. Perhaps it's why Marvel's movies are only getting smart recently. But if we are working under the premise that there is no way it can fail, does that makes it a risk?
1. Narrative - Risking the narrative by telling an unconventional, which hurts the narrative if not pulled off correctly.
2. Intelligence Something that challenges the viewer intellectually on some level
3. Comfort - utilizing story that risk making the audience uncomfortable on some level, potentially inciting offense
I keep 2 and 3 distinct for reasons I'll explain in a bit, but I think 1 is going to be discussed the most, so I'll tackle it first and most.
1. Narrative
I think of it as sort of a half truth. The biggest thing that I see in Marvel movies is that they adhere to the golden triad of Comedy-Drama-Action extremely closely. I wonder if that was always the plan, but after the incredible success of Iron Man, whose a character that the triad worked extremely well with, they decided to make that the template that other movies would be made from. Now, it's arguable that those traits are ubiquitous to nearly every blockbuster movie because their such abstract concepts, but I feel that something like...say, Fury Road, even though it definitely has silly humor ("I got the bloodbag's boot!), it has a different feel from Marvel, and Marvel has a different feel to how it flows between it's tension points, relief points, and action sequences.
Still, I feel it's debatable how detrimental that actually is. One one hand, it's formulaic and I don't know if it fits all characters the way it does Tony Stark. Steve Rogers isn't a smart ass like Tony, nor is Black Widow (or atleast she wasn't in her first few appearances), Thor's supposed to be a bit more stupid but earnest..and Marvel plays into that as well for their smartass humor. The action parts feel more distinct, because characters have different powers, but because of the plot stucture they adhere to and the genre they're set in, every movie has to end with a big climactic fight. Some will argue "Well, duh, it's superheroes, super powers being used for fighting is to be expected" and there is merit to that...but at the same time, the climax of Doctor Strange was him getting helplessly killed over and over again, so maybe there is wiggle room to do the climaxes in a none traditional manner. And the drama is obviously the most distictive part of all the movies. None of the characters really have the same kinds of crisis. The closest is Tony's and Strange's character arcs from going rich, arrogant shitheel to nice guys, and there are substantial differences even there.
Speaking more broadly, there isn't a marvel movie I can think of that didn't have unique substances to it. Captain America's films seem to take changes of genre as they go on, from somewhat corny pastime war movie (first avenger), to espionage action (Winter Soldier), to the more fantastical epic tragedy (Civil War). Doctor Strange introduced psychedelic magic to the MCU, Thor's movies do the whole space opera thing, and Guardians of the Galaxy have a distinct flavor of wacky comedy compared to the rest of the universe, Antman was structured like a heist film...
They're all built on the same comedy-drama-action triad foundation, but each consistently tries out and brings new things to the overall universe. I would say that Civil War is the riskiest film they've taken in terms of narrative. For one, this is a transformative moment for all the Avengers by having them turn against each other. This could have ended VERY badly because if they flubbed the character motivations, then they would have damaged the characters as a whole. If Tony had been acting like a stupid asshole instead of a guilt ridden guy whose trying to keep his friends together, or if Steve had acted like a self righteous douchebag instead of a guy torn between several people he cares for, this wouldn't have just resulted in one bad movie, it'd have gone back in time, hurt all the previous movies he was in, and then left a stink on the future movies he was in. Marvel would have had to work hard to fix the issues it caused in the future movies. But they pulled it off and we were left with a good character drama between two differing but neither villainous people. That seems like it was a risk to me.
Additionally, Winter Soldier had them blow up all of Shield. Which while that may not have been THAT big a game changer in the movies, it was certainly interesting seeing the creative solutions that Agents of Shield came up with to keep their premise justified.
2. Intelligence
So the other complaint is that the movies are brainless popcorn flicks. The cinematic junkfood. Well, certainly, I can think of a number of more interesting movies with more intelligent themes going on. Still, I wouldn't say it's outright brainless. I already used Civil War as an example (though I think it's definitely interesting to talk about it's themes more than any other marvel movie). However, for the sake of novelty, I think the much maligned Age of Ultron has probably the most thought provoking themes after Civil War. A word that comes up often in that movie is "Monster". At some point, every Avenger other than Hawkeye describes themselves as such. On one hand, it's somewhat flimsy. Ultron literally wants to destroy the world, and even if you think some qualities of the avengers are questionable, they're still the heroes that try to save people. Still, it's Tony's fault that Ultron got made....yet when he acts on those same instincts a second time, the benevolent Vision was made. Yet is Vision, who is very inhuman and in Civil War goes on to be the only one of the avengers to actually critically wound another, a kind of monster in and of himself? Is what Tony did the actions of a reckless person a danger to society, or was ultron just a particularly disasterous mistake that happened in the natural progress of science? What about Wanda and Quicksilver's redemption stories after helping bring ultron into the world. Is Cap someone who naturally seeks out war, despite being supposedly for peace? How do we peg Black Widow's betrayal when she pushes Banner down a hole to bring out Hulk, when his crisis is that his only value is as a monster and his human part is irrelevant? It's a theme that puts the microscope on each avenger in a somewhat uncomfortable way, each of them unique. It's not altogether elegantly done, as the movie is somewhat unpolished in many ways of it's writing, but it's probably the one I keep coming back to the most in terms of thinking about what it's actually about.
That said, Age of Ultron and Civil War are the only ones I feel I can personally say this about. Maybe Winter Soldier as well, with it's themes of Surveillance, though I feel it didn't do anything particularly good with it. It's not that I think the other films are dumb, exactly, but their mostly character drama's. The intelligence of Guardiants of the Galaxy, for example, is in how it writes the emotional core of the movie, but because it's tackling a complex idea. That's 3 out of 14 films thus far, if we're being generous. Not the greatest track record, but it's not like they ignore it entirely either. I feel the smartest of the Marvel Cinematic universe is probably Jessica Jones though. Kilgrave is rape culture personified, but they still made him feel like a completely natural character. That's something a very multifaceted concept for which there can be a lot of discussion over.
3. Comfort
Lastly, we get to the part where we challenge to make the audience uncomfortable. I feel like this point is intermingled with 2, but distinct. For example, the Luke Cage series is not particularly well written imo (atleast the second half. The first half I enjoyed a lot). However, it is a show unlike any other: a Street level superhero show with a nearly entirely black cast, addressing current social problems with black people. That concept alone isn't wrestling with anything inherently intelligent, but this type of power fantasy is something that isn't done because conventional wisdom is that it makes white people uncomfortable. And it does, though that's probably a smaller percentage of people than most. (Atleast theoretically. You never know in Trump's America) To this, I myself complained about how Marvel consistently made the protagonists of their movies white, straight, cisgendered men pretty much constantly when there were other superheroes they could bring in, or else make some white heroes black or something. Marvel's TV's stuff is much better with this. Jessica Jones addressed rape culture (I know I mentioned this in 2, but I was addressing HOW they wrote it was intelligent, while here the point is the inherent uncomfortable nature of addressing rape culture), Luke Cage tackles black problems, and Daredevil established dark elements that simply weren't in the grander, lighter marvel movies.
On the other hand, phase 3 has Black Panther, which too will have an all black cast and Captain Marvel, which stars it's first female superhero protagonist.
On a less socially charged tone, Guardians of the Galaxy represents a risk of audience alienation in terms of silliness. A talking racoon and a tree that repeats it's own name endlessly? That's something that could have easily turned away audiences. Perhaps not made them 'uncomfortable', but made them feel like the subject material wasn't for them. So I think GotG qualifies as a risk in that regard.
But how much of a risk is it, precisely? The thing about Marvel is that it feels like it's reached "Too big to fail" capacity. Only 2 and 3 are more in terms of audience alienating concepts than 1 is, and one has to wonder, what audience can Marvel alienate that would actually hurt it? I mean, by definition, it feels like a risk should involve some danger of loss of something. In terms of making movies, once you get passed the risk of hurting the story itself (which is what 1 is), the only thing you have left to lose is your audience.
But marvel's seal of quality is such that it feels like there is nothing they can actually do to lose a significant enough portion of their audience. Which is perhaps why we are getting Black Panther and Captain Marvel films only now. Perhaps it's why Marvel's movies are only getting smart recently. But if we are working under the premise that there is no way it can fail, does that makes it a risk?
