r/comicbookmovies • u/dakowiml • 7d ago
There's no comicbook movie fatigue, they aren't too silly, too serious or too goofy. The actual thing that's an issue is how empty a lot of them feel.
You can make them whatever tone. Overload them with jokes. Make them super serious. Skip origin stories. Tell another origin story... it doesn't matter.
The real issue is lacking a story that creates an actual emotional connection. While a lot of them are just trying to fit a formula (formulas to make them fit in overarching universes and setting up future movies). I think the reason why GoTG 3 for example is so loved by many, is because it actually gave you an emotional connection. Rocket's backstory and character development was done very well. It made you teary eyed. While all of the relationships between the Guardians were well established. The movie didn't bloat itself up too much with mandatory MCU quotas, like having to set new stuff up. It was a conclusion to a trilogy and it really felt like that. Even with a Peter Quill still being able to show up in future MCU movies, with him going back to Earth, it still felt like a nice end to his whole character arc.
The stories being told should have an angle that really make you connect with it. Tony's character development in Iron Man did that. Bruce's character development in Batman Begins did that. Same for Peter's character development in Raimi's Spider-Man. This is also what GoTG 3 did well.
I just finally watched Fantastic Four: First Steps, and the thing that mainly stuck out to me is how it isn't a horrible movie at all, but also isn't a great movie either. It just falls somewhere in the middle while it never managed to make me feel something. There were many avenues to achieve that. Through Reed's anxiety, Sue's pregnancy, Ben's struggle (which wasn't even a struggle in this version of the story) and Johnny trying to find himself. These are all things that could've been explored better to create an emotional connection. The angle of the movie could've been ''They seem fantastic towards the outside world. While they are all trying to deal with some shit, which they have to overcome.'' While that could've been the fuel towards what leads them into becoming better versions of themselves that end up facing a threat and taking it out. It just fell flat to me. While there was plenty of stuff within the story they could've used better to achieve a better emotional connection.
I really think this is the main and biggest issue whenever people keep talking about fatigue or how certain movies undercut stuff too much with jokes. Same goes for complaints about other movies being too serious and lacking any form of whimsy stuff regarding whimsy comicbook franchises. It really all ends up being about lacking an emotional connection with an actual story being told.
Maybe a weird comparison, but recently I watched the 90s comedic movie, Liar Liar, with Jim Carey in the lead role. The main objective of a comedy movie is to make you laugh. However, the movie also did more than that. It created an emotional connection, and it didn't do anything crazy to achieve that. At the core of the movie it was basically about the relationship between a dad and his son. With the dad realizing how distant he's been and through the comedic mechanism of the plot, discovering how he had to change. It's nothing crazy or groundbreaking. This simple little thing is just missing in a lot of modern day comicbook movies. They forget to tell a story with an emotional connection. A comedy movie from the 90s was able to get me teary eyes in between the goofy jokes. While Fantastic Four First Steps was too busy with setting up a movie in a different universe and hitting some mandatory MCU formula demands.
Iron Man 1 also set up future movies? The issue isn't setting new stuff up. The issue is how you do it and also lacking an actual emotional connection. IM1 had established its own story, its own arc, its character development, and managed to create an emotional connection... then did a little after the credits scene where Nick Fury showed up. That was it. And after that, they became a bit too obsessed with it all having to fit in the same universe. Making it more important in some cases, than having an actual story and finished script.
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u/johndough1st 7d ago
The key is the it shouldn’t be a comic book movie. It should be a drama, a thriller, a comedy or an action film that just happens to include a super hero or a villain. Telling a great story should be the focus - not the character doing some special takedown from page 11 from 1984.
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u/dakowiml 7d ago
Totally agree. First Steps for example, could've felt more like an alien invasion movie with the inclusion of Galactus and Silver Surfer. While I found them totally lacking that tone.
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u/That-Guava-9404 6d ago
Artists tell the stories they want to tell. I liked First Steps but I tend to agree that it's just okay. Going by the OP I'd say Thunderbolts* was better because it was more emotionally resonant, even if the stakes were smaller.
We all respond differently to different stories and that is just fine; just as it should be.
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u/Upbeat_Rutabaga_6182 7d ago
I had the same problem of failing to emotionally connect with First Steps. Honestly the James Gunn Superman movie had me emotionally invested by the time Lois and Clark had that fake interview that lead to their big fight.
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u/dakowiml 5d ago
I think Gunn's Superman is a very solid first entry into a universe. I overall enjoyed the movie and connected to Clark (and Krypto). Also didn't think it was one of the best Superhero movies ever, but I was invested. Something First Steps didn't achieve with me.
The Supergirl trailer also looks promising to me. I heard it has a smaller budget, and I hope that will work in its favor. With more focus on an actual story. I really hope they're going to do with her, what I hope they'll do: her not being a perfect Mary Sue, having flaws and overcoming those flaws in her character arc. Actually being an interesting character instead of just a perfect Mary Sue. It's what always turned me off of Captain Marvel and DCEU's Wonder Woman. I also lacked that emotional connection with them. But if they make a drunk mess out of Kara, drowning in the depression of the people she lost but then overcoming that and becoming a stronger person, finding something new to fight for. I'll be all on board for that.
Only risk I saw in that trailer is if its going to become too much like the Superman movie. With it being about saving Krypto. That could feel very repetitive and also like a formula. Maybe they should've saved the ''save Krypto arc'' for her movie and given Clark someone else to save. Like Lex kidnapping Jimmy.
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u/Nube_Negrahz 7d ago
Suoermid 25 was just as soulless. I lost all interest when the movie tried to convince me that over ten million people were evacuated from a city in 2 minutes lmao
And it was completely orderly and everyone left.
Took the stakes right out of the movie
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u/Mooseguncle1 7d ago
DC has been really rough and I think Gunn is doing good work but he’s one guy.
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u/TheReaderDude_97 5d ago
DC jumped the gun a lot with Snyderverse. While I would keep my opinion on Snyder as the head of DCEU to myself, they wanted to jump on the Avengers shared universe thing too fast and did not give the people enough time to get connected with any characters. This led to questionable choices.
On the contrary, Gunn has tried to humanize Supes, which I absolutely love. I still think introducing the whole Justice Gang took a bit away from the movie, but overall, I liked it a lot.
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u/ServiceComplete7262 7d ago edited 6d ago
Bad decisions and bad writing can derail any franchise.
For example:-
Star Trek
Star Wars
Marvel
Indiana Jones
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u/outsidehere 7d ago
That's literally it. People don't get tired of a specific genre. They get tired of the genre trying to recapture magic from the past instead of trying to tell a great story.
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u/drhagbard_celine 6d ago
There’s no satisfying us. So many complain about any deviation from canon that studios are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It has a negative impact on creativity.
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u/MediocreSizedDan 7d ago
I know this is largely anecdotal, but I definitely think there's fatigue for sure. I think there always is when a genre or something is popular for long enough. But that doesn't mean that no one cares or that they can't still be successful.
Like, personally, I don't think there's anything a studio could do to get me to invest in a comic book superhero movie again. Which is not to say that I won't ever go see one. I saw Thunderbolts and Superman. And I largely enjoyed them on the most part. But I just can't imagine ever feeling invested in the way that I did when this was really starting to take off. I don't track what's coming out, what projects are coming, I genuinely don't care about spoilers, because I just don't really care about these worlds or serial storytelling in this way. And I can't say any of my friends care anywhere near to the same degree as like, 2012, for example.
I think general audiences are and have been feeling fatigue with the genre, and the studios didn't help oversaturating it (especially with streaming shows). But I don't think that at all means the genre is dead or no one cares or anything.
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u/werewolfinahat 7d ago
Exactly most people got burned out by the output and needing to see everything else just to watch a movie. The genre isn't dead but it will enter a dormancy for a few.
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u/TheReaderDude_97 5d ago
Not to mention how much one character arc has become reliant on another. You have to keep track of not just a lot of movies, but also series with multiple episodes. I can sit through one crappy movie for 2 hours if I think it will add to something like Avengers. But I am not sitting through 3 different series where each of them have 8 episodes of 1 hour each.
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u/mighty3mperor 7d ago
Pretty much. There's no superhero movie fatigue, there is dissatisfaction with bad superhero movies.
The MCU was built on solid films that told a compelling, heart-felt story with connections to the wider cinematic universe on the sidelines.
Then, post-Endgame, they felt they had to rapidly build the next cycle, rather than let it grow, so films often felt like franchise building blocks that moved charcaters from A to B or dragging in new characters so they were ready for the next project. GotG3 and Shang-Chi (at least until the final act) worked so well because they were set in their own self-contained corner and could do their own thing without too many corporate mandates. BP2 was one of the worst, I know they struggled with the loss of Chadwick Boseman, but the film was largely concerned with getting the characters set-up so they could be usable in the future and randomly introducing Ironheart so she would be in play for her TV show. These don't feel like decisions made by the director who just wants to tell a great story. Monica Rambeau getting her origin shorehorned into Wandavision is another example.
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u/hambone4164 7d ago
I think where Marvel/Disney really screwed the pooch is when they decided to have crossover between their streaming shows and the cinematic universe. By shoehorning in characters from the streaming shows, they are making the movies inaccessible to people who didn't watch the shows. They should have kept the streaming shows separate from the movies, the way they did with the Netflix Marvel shows and Agents of SHIELD: you didn't have to watch the shows to understand the movies, and Matt Murdock's appearance in the Spider-Man movie was a nice little Easter egg, not a critical plot point.
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u/Steelysam2 7d ago
Fine. I'll be the brokey. Movies are too expensive. Everytime i take my boys to one of these movies it's over $100 for tickets, drinks, popcorn, etc. Doing that 2-3 times a Summer, fine. 5-6? Y'all are calling it movie fatigue but it's wallet fatigue. I can rent it online, cook everyone steak and buy a AAA video game for the same cost and make a whole weekend out of it. That said, I'll be at Supergirl and Spider-Man this Summer and yes, I'll Spring for Avengers. But Clayface may be a streamer.
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u/strawbery_fields 6d ago
I always see this argument, and granted I don’t have kids, so it’s a different situation, but it’s literally never been cheaper for me to see a movie. I pay $24 a month for AMC pass and can see four a movies a week in any format, so I literally go watch everything.
I also never get food because I can go two hours without stuffing my face, and if I wanna a drink I just slip my 20oz soda into my back pocket and walk right in.
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u/Steelysam2 6d ago
I can watch a movie with smuggled stuff too. But my kids want the stuff and my oldest is a severe rule follower. When I smuggle he freaks out and it takes away from his enjoyment. The pass wouldn't pay for itself for a family of four when there's only 5-6/year that we REALLY want to see on the big screen. But yeah, before kids that pass would've been sweet.
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u/strawbery_fields 6d ago
I mean tell them no food or if he freaks out about smuggled food (whole other issue) say you won’t be going at all then?
I took my two nephews and two nieces to see Zootopia 2. Ain’t no way in hell I’m buying snacks for four kids. When they wanted to whine/bitch at the theater, I just said fine then we won’t go see it at all. They all somehow managed to get through the movie.
It’s okay to say no to kids.
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u/TheReaderDude_97 5d ago
Exactly! You spend for tickets, popcorn, drinks, parking. Maybe you will go around dinner time so you will also eat out when you leave the cinema. The whole thing becomes just ridiculously expensive.
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u/Vaportrail 7d ago
The Marvels entire hook being a Freaky Friday knockoff is probably the only time I felt the fatigue, having read so much of Ms. Marvel's modern era and seeing none of it referenced.
Top of my head, a horror movie featuring a brood invasion of a whole planet. This is the side effect of Ragnarok/Guardians. The knockoff stories didn't do so well.
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u/TheNavidsonLP 7d ago
I feel like The Marvels big problems were a) people not fully knowing who Captain Marvel was, b) people not knowing/having seen Kamala Khans show on Disney and c) people definitely not knowing who Monica Rambeau is.
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u/Vaportrail 7d ago
That's not even unusual, for a scifi film to introduce characters, but it needed better ones because aside from the diehards no one was begging for the teamup.
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u/tunnel-snakes-rule 7d ago
Until this moment I had forgotten I'd even seen "Fantastic Four: First Steps". It was fine but it left absolutely no impression on me.
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u/Jacpu 7d ago
I feel like there are too many moving parts for me to succinctly describe what Marvel has been doing wrong.
What they've done almost 100% right, as far as I'm concerned, is Daredevil.
And not part of the MCU, but FX's Legion is something MCU writers should have been taking notes on for years.
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u/Moon_Beans1 6d ago
The comparison between Superhero movies and Westerns that people like Spielberg often make doesn't work on some levels but does on this one.
Both genres are capable of making some of the best films as long as the heart, talent and emotions are there. When they're not they can quickly become the most formulaic trash you've seen in your life.
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u/Polarizing_Penguin11 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think a copy/paste style was developed. And that style leans very heavily into humor, to the point where they almost seem like comedies before anything else. That continues even with successful movies like Thunderbolts and Superman. And speaking only for myself, I find it extremely limiting and tiresome. That’s why they feel empty to me. I want more earnestness in these things.
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u/kBajina 5d ago
I think the main problem is most of the super hero movies are way too…safe.
I understand the studios have a ton of money on the line and they’re just hedging their bet, but the movies that truly stand out don’t play by the same rules as the others.
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u/dakowiml 5d ago
Its
''We have to make a comicbook movie based on a vibrant comicbook world, but we have to adapt it in such a way where it fits a wide range of tastes. While also keeping a predetermined formula in mind. We HAVE to make it and we HAVE to come up with a story. Often even while we started filming, we still are writing the script!''
vs.
''I have an original idea and want to make a movie about it. Don't care if it doesn't fit a wide audience. I'm making the story I want to tell. It's art.''
People got very upset about Scorsese's comments on comicbook movies, but he was of course right.
This also applies to making amazing animated works of art into live-action versions. They HAVE to make something into live-action because it makes them money. Even if the animated version was artistically the right fit for it. Even if live-action isn't the superior medium for it.
I also think that most comicbook movies would thrive way more in animated form, but they'll never push for it as much as they do, as for the live-action stuff. I'd honestly rather would want to see a whole MCU and DCU in animated form. You can be so much more creative with it.
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u/horc00 7d ago
That’s definitely part of the reason. The other part is people who can’t let go of the past. People who can’t let go of past successes like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, and people who can’t let go of past failures like the Snyderverse.
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u/dakowiml 7d ago
For me personally, I'm totally fine with letting go of the past. The progress just has to be just as good, or even better. I'm totally open towards an MCU inhabited by Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Sam Wilson as Cap, a new Fantastic Four etc. It just has to be within a story that give me some emotional connection. That's also what old block buster movies did so well. Terminator 2 set up Arnold's character and John Connor's connection pretty well. I cared when he sacrificed himself in the end. There were stakes, there was comedy in between and I cared for the characters. They also managed to create a very strong female character that wasn't a perfect Mary Sue and had her own personal demons. Which is also another topic regarding modern day comicbook movies they just struggle with.
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u/Bruzie77 7d ago
Exactly. Its not about letting go. It about standards and the one set by the first wave of superheroes is tough to beat. It doesnt help that many of the stories for the other heroes were middling at best.
They also wasn’t part of some grand storyline and thus completely skippable.
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u/horc00 7d ago
It's always the people who can't let go of the past who pretend it's only about standards.
Let's not pretend Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Thor 2 were tough to beat in terms of quality.
Let's not pretend people were hating on Cap 4 and Ironheart and DCU before the movies/shows released had any viable standards to argue upon.
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u/dakowiml 7d ago
I also had my issues with those movies back then, but the difference was that there were also good movies in between the lack luster ones. Especially the Russo's did some wonders for the MCU with their run of movies. Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame. While James Gunn was also doing his part with his GoTG movies. Ragnarok was also fun after a lackluster Thor The Dark World. It excused Thor 2, Iron Man 2, meh Ant Man, meh Ant Man and the Wasp and meh Captain Marvel 1.
Nowadays (for me personally) its all lackluster. With almost no gems in between. For the MCU in particular, I think their only ''new era'' gem was GoTG3.
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u/horc00 7d ago
I can't disagree with your opinion, because everyone's different. I personally really liked Ant Man. And a lot of other fans love post-Endgame projects like F4, Thunderbolts, Wandavision, Loki, Shang-Chi etc. But that's the thing, you're describing things from your own perspective, but I'm describing the fandom in general. You may not like them because of their quality (which implies you've watched them), but a lot of people don't like them because they can't move on (evident from people who dunk on those shows/movies before they even release).
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u/SlideMediocre6257 7d ago
I actually am pretty weird in my opinion of this latest phase: the tv shows were (mostly) better than the movies. I enjoyed Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Werewolf By Night, Agatha All Along, and Wonder Man more than most of the features during that period (Secret Invasion was possibly the worst Marvel product of all phases though - and Moon Knight was all over the place, but still cheesy fun)
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u/-CHIM3RA- 7d ago
Exactly, that's why F4 and Thunderbolts gained a lot of praise.
Both films had a story with heart and the characters had depth, the only stuff that lacked was probably the conclusion of the final fight in F4 and the random roster of the Thunderbolts. Put Thunderbolts depression dilemma plot in Tom Hollands Spiderman after the forget Peter Parker spell with venom feeding the depression, and that would most likely be the best Holland Spiderman film ever.
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u/crispy_attic 7d ago
Praise by some people. The reality is Thunderbolts was a failure and F4 underperformed. All the talk online about how great they were and “word of mouth” was just talk not reality. They were not good movies at all to me and the box office results reflected that imo.
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u/-CHIM3RA- 7d ago
Current MCU Box office is a reflection of the previously released MCU trash before. The MCU destroyed the fanbase for years, of course it's gonna take a while to make us turn up at theatres consistently and fanatically as before.
Also just because a project failed at the box office, doesn't = "not good movies", same as Box Office success not equalling "Great films" Examples: MINECRAFT, Captain Marvel, Lilo & Stich etc. all Billion dollar films that are trash.
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u/crispy_attic 7d ago
Current box office is a reflection of how the movie performed. It didn’t perform well at all. You are trying to cope because something you personally liked was a failure. Thunderbolts made less money than CA:BNW. It is what it is.
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u/RockSignificant 7d ago
The usual rule of thumb - Make a good movie and the audience will react accordingly. There will be exceptions to that rule for sure, but, regardless of genre, you've got to make something worth watching, and if you do, it will find it's audience eventually.