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How do?

Fancied a topic about the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, just in case!), and how they've managed to pull off what other studios genuinely struggle with.

I don't want to wax lyrical at the moment. Suffice to say that I'm a fan of the MCU, and whilst internal consistency hasn't been particularly reliable, I think people would genuinely struggle to say there's an objectively bad movie in amongst them - as in one you genuinely cannot see any redeeming feature in, such as the frankly woeful Catwoman with Halle Berry (who at least had the good graces to collect her Razzie. Always nice to see that sense of humour and indeed humility).

How did Marvel get away with it? Why do other studios seem to falter early on? And considering the very much mixed response to The Last Jedi, how come the same studio has, to some, stalled with Star Wars?

Lets 'ave yoor finking, pls

Well, to begin with, it's not the same studio handling Marvel and Star Wars. Both studios are under Disney, sure, but it's more like the situation you have with videogames - Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm are the "developers", while Disney is the "publisher", and the disparity is chiefly because Disney are remarkably "hands off" for a HUEG megacorp in that kind of situation...so long as you're doing well enough that the money keeps rolling in.

As to why the MCU does well, I'd say it's a big ol' mix of things. The films are accessible enough for complete newcomers while still packing in a fair amount of nod-wink references for fans of the source material. The "[genre] but with supey-heroes" format keeps things reasonably fresh despite all the obvious similarities in tone, style etc that permeate the franchise. The films, as you say, don't usually drop below "solid but not earthshaking popcorn blockbuster" in quality level so people will rarely feel like they didn't get their money's worth. They're generally well written with good actors who're often evidently having as much fun playing the parts as the viewer is watching them. Basically, the MCU is good because...well, it's good, hah.

Star Wars is a different beast. They're still trying to figure out what "Star Wars but owned by Disney and releasing films regularly" really looks like, but I think the major flaw is whoever's calling the shots over at Lucasfilm right now is giving too much freedom to their directors for the sorts of films those directors are assigned to. They also seem to be picking the wrong director first time around at least a couple of times now and have to bring in someone else to fix things up. The result is wild tonal shifts, going from JJ's high-octane, low-braincell "I'm gonna make your childhood nostalgia punch you in the face" take on things, to Rian Johnson's purposeful but often sloppily executed dismantling of the whole concept of fond nostalgia and the hero's journey.

I think the key difference between them is audience expectations. I can know with a very, very high degree of certainty that if I walk into a cinema and cough up to see an MCU movie, I will leave having had at a bare minimum my money's worth in entertainment, and I have a fair chance of seeing something genuinely special. But what can I expect if I go and pay for a ticket to a Star Wars movie? I might get a pretty awesome film(Rogue One); I might get a fairly empty lightshow(TFA); I might get a fairly savage takedown of a lot of the core parts of the franchise I went to watch combined with some pretty shonky Grauniad thinkpiece material about "toxic masculinity", frustratingly wrapped around a core that feels like it could have been really really great but gets dragged down to irritatingly flawed(TLJ); or whatever Solo ends up being.

Considering this was meant to be the triumphant return of Star Wars after the Prequels(which are mostly not as bad as they're made out to be, but certainly don't live up to the originals), that level of uncertainty isn't a good thing. It's all very well for critics to indignantly opine that there's no point in going to the cinema if it never surprises you, but Joe Public doesn't get to watch movies for free, and fans of things typically want more of the same with a bit of a twist to keep it fresh, not a gleeful hatchet job by an auteur.

So yeah, TL;DR is MCU usually gives people what they expect at a level of quality that never falls below "good enough", while Star Wars(and, indeed, several other attempted "cinematic universes", for varying reasons) is a bit of a crapshoot and if you get one of the ones you dislike you'll tend to really dislike it.

What makes the MCU work? Unstable Molecules. Wait, that's the comics. Repulsor technology.

The mcu works because they have a plan and someone in xharge making sure all the pieces fall into place. Infinity war has been on its way since iron man 1. They took their time to build the characters and make everyrhing work.

Dc on the other has no fething idea whT they are doing.

Stopped Clocks and lowered standards has a lot to do with it

As for no bad movies, Thor 2 and Iron Man 2 and 3 kind of sucked, Ultron was far too long, Civil War was distinctly mehh, Guardians 2 lost something, but they seem to get a pass because the Distinguished Competition are pooping out far worse

Haven't seen Black Panther but suspect virtue hyping a la Wonder Woman has been a factor in taking a decent movie and getting a smidge too over excited and declaring it the best Super thing eva

Black Panther is pretty solid, and plenty to enjoy within it.

My main criticism is that during the pagga at the end, the background fighters look a little too choreographed. But there's no wasted characters, and no deus ex outcome.

It's a by-the-numbers Marvel origin (including facing Evil You as the foe), but one that's clearly learned from the predecessors.

As for virtue signalling, I think it's easy for many of us to underestimate just how mega the approach taken here was. Whether you feel it's gained favourable reviews because of that? Well, that's a whole different, probably swiftly locked thread. But to see the cultural impact it's had gives me warm and fuzzies. To me, it's the equivalent of 'use the Force' coming into common parlance as a result of ANH.

"Lando Calrissian got to fly the millennium falcon"

I'm all for fairness, inclusion, and wotnot but more a fan of the slow blade penetrates the shield approach rather than the "progressive" foghorn currently en vogue, but like you say its somewhat of a minefield to negotiate

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Haven't seen Black Panther but suspect virtue hyping a la Wonder Woman has been a factor in taking a decent movie and getting a smidge too over excited and declaring it the best Super thing eva

So far it's the third best super thing ever.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
"Lando Calrissian got to fly the millennium falcon"

I'm all for fairness, inclusion, and wotnot but more a fan of the slow blade penetrates the shield approach rather than the "progressive" foghorn currently en vogue, but like you say its somewhat of a minefield to negotiate

Eh. Anecdotally, my immediate colleagues, who are by no means nerdy, loved Black Panther. My manager, and I quote 'it makes me proud to be African'. It seems to be a kind of Braveheart effect. Ultimately a fairy tale, but has an appeal that can't be described.

Won't go into more detail as it's not really relevant to this topic

I agree with Lance. Marvel had a rough outline of where they wanted to go if Iron Man was successful. The MCU is seeming to hit the right balance between action, light-hearted humor, & accessibility. The fans of the comics know where the story is headed, but the average movie goer can still follow what's happening in the context of the 1 movie. All of the threads are leading to the same place.

The DCEU is trying to recreate the tone of the Dark Knight trilogy. While it worked with Batman, the rest of the heroes & villains tend to be OP. This contrasts starkly with gritty, "realistic" world they are trying to build. Additionally, they are shoe-horning the overall story into the movies. This makes everything seem disjointed, IMO.

I'm not really sure what counts as part of the MCU... but yea I think the expectations are different as people go into a superhero film just wanting a bit of silly fun. If it turns out to be more than that then even better!
The recent mummy film and Batbloke vs Superdude took themselves far too seriously :-p

Star Wars seems weighed down by the expectations of fans with rose tinted spectacles, so unless it absolutely blows them away then it is not considered good enough!

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
"Lando Calrissian got to fly the millennium falcon"

I'm all for fairness, inclusion, and wotnot but more a fan of the slow blade penetrates the shield approach rather than the "progressive" foghorn currently en vogue, but like you say its somewhat of a minefield to negotiate

FWIW, I never particularly felt I was being lectured, or that the movie forgot to be fun in order to deliver a Message. And really, the only message I can really think of was "many people in or with roots in Africa have had a really rough time in recent centuries", which is hard to dispute.

Maybe it's not always making a Statement to have stories where people other than white American / European men get to have cool starring roles and save the world? Maybe it's just recognising that aiming for other demographics isn't just a positive social force, it's also a mostly-untapped market.

I think there's a few things. For one, the MCU was built on stand alone movies first with inter connectivity being a thing that they were going for, but only really teased in the beginning. Rather than get an initial hit and build upon what works in it, most studios are starting with Iron Man 2 and giving us movies that are way more interested in selling the universe than being a good movie on their own merits.

Marvel also had a good amount of initial flexibility. I assume they always wanted Loki to be the Avengers villain given his role in the Avenger's comic origin but if Thor had been a flop they could have audibled in Red Skull pretty easily. There's a lot of little narrative freedoms built into these films by virtue of them largely NOT being interconnected outside of the little cameos in the post credits. For the most part, nothing has to happen in one film to make another work and that gives each film the flexibility to adapt itself to be what it needs to be.

Most of all though, I think the best explanation I've heard to what makes the Marvel movies different is that they believe in the source material. Where most movie studios seem to be slightly ashamed of where this stuff comes from, Marvel seems more willing to trust that whatever works for people in the comics will probably work on film. Guardians is probably the best example of what Marvel does differently. It's not particularly faithful to the comics in the traditional sense, but can you imagine what would have happened if any other studio tried to adapt the space adventures of a talking Racoon and his friend the giant tree?

I think that part of it is that the pre-Avengers films focused on being good, stand -alone films which focused on one major character. Iron Man and Hulk saved the crossover elements for the post-credits, while Cap, Thor, and Iron Man 2 only had crossovers using SHIELD agents.

In contrast, DC goes for an ensemble cast of big names starting from the second movie, and 60% of their films so far have been ensemble movies. Rather than slowly introduce us to the characters and supporting cast, they dump us straight in, meaning that we care less about everybody. I think that actors and directors may also struggle to deal with so many high-profile characters needing development all at once.

Then there is Universal, where they spent a large part of the Mummies runtime visibly sowing the seed for their expanded universe.

Finally, there is the fact that Marvel did it first, bringing together a huge ensemble for the Avengers. Everyone else will be seen as trying to copy the success of this film. So Marvel get to be seen as creative and ambitious, while DC and othersget perceived as knockoffs.

MCU: They take time to establish characters, plots and interactions and build films that the audience will enjoy. Characters and plot mostly make sense within the narrative structure and setting of the film universe. It all works.

The Force Awakens was a simple remake of Star Wars
Rogue One was much braver and had an excellent second half that fitted the style of the original films

Sadly the Last Jedi was carelessly excreted onto the screen and relied on a known and vast built in audience and buying off the critics. No attempt was made to make any kind of narrative structure or even a coherent plot or pacing.

Wonder Woman and Justice League were a breath of fresh air after the Lex Luthor turd that was Bats vs Superman.

Black Panther was great fun.

Tom Cruise's Mummy film was too serious - really? It had quite a few comedy moments.

I think LunarSol and Crazy make some excellent observations.

It wasn't that Marvel had their master plan carved in stone. It was their planned looseness and nimbleness that got the thing rolling. The earliest films *weren't* highly interconnected, and they had manageable budgets. If something hadn't worked, it would have been easily dropped without much damage to the studio, and the course easily corrected. They also hedged their bets by using different directors and seeing what worked. And although Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor weren't great films and weren't great at the box office, they mostly worked and built momentum toward the Avengers, when everything changed.

Certainly Marvel had strong centralized control, and sought out directors agreeable to executing the studio's vision more than their own. And what they had most of all is a star actor who somehow managed to be the glue for the whole thing through the force of his charm and charisma. Movies are still star-driven things and always will be.

WB's issues weren't really because they rushed, and definitely weren't because they didn't have a plan. Their issues started with them going all in (with *huge* budgets) on their plan...which was one director's vision. Three of their first five films tell one highly connected story. This is very different from what Marvel did with the MCU, and now it's pretty easy to see what the risk was. If the story or vision didn't resonate, course changes were going to be *painful*. WB is likely still kicking themselves for not firing Snyder after BvS like some execs wanted. That would have hurt at the time, but potentially spared them from much more pain down the road like we saw.

It's also important to note that the MCU characters were mostly unknown by general audiences, and had little pre-existing live-action baggage to speak of. They also aren't slavishly true to the comics. What they've done IMO is create a kind of veneer of the comics version but let the movie version become its own thing. Because I'm a Cap fan, I think their treatment of Captain America is a good example.

The Star Wars and DC characters are in a very different place. There are lots and lots of expectations and comparators and headcanon for audiences.

On the point of expectations regarding Star Wars characters specifically - if you're referring to the common criticism that people who were annoyed by the direction Johnson chose to go with Rey's backstory were unpleaseable because they spent ages speculating, I've never seen that view as fair even if it's not an issue with the film that bugged me all that much personally.

It's not the fans' fault they chose JJ "mystery box" Abrams to direct TFA. It's also not the fans' fault they then allowed Johnson to come in and throw JJ's plan for the Sequels - Rey's origins included - out the window so he could "make a point". The filmmakers created and encouraged speculation and expectations, and then the filmmakers intentionally dashed those expectations to show how super-duper clever and edgy they were. The only people to blame for the bad reaction(at least, the part of it that falls within rational discourse, because of course these days you have to confirm you're not defending the tiny, tiny, microscopic minority of idiots who set their toy collection on fire or threaten to murder people's families) to that kind of thing are the people making the films.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do?

Fancied a topic about the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe, just in case!), and how they've managed to pull off what other studios genuinely struggle with.

I don't want to wax lyrical at the moment. Suffice to say that I'm a fan of the MCU, and whilst internal consistency hasn't been particularly reliable, I think people would genuinely struggle to say there's an objectively bad movie in amongst them - as in one you genuinely cannot see any redeeming feature in, such as the frankly woeful Catwoman with Halle Berry (who at least had the good graces to collect her Razzie. Always nice to see that sense of humour and indeed humility).

How did Marvel get away with it? Why do other studios seem to falter early on? And considering the very much mixed response to The Last Jedi, how come the same studio has, to some, stalled with Star Wars?

Lets 'ave yoor finking, pls

I think Marvel took the time to understand what resonated with the fan base and made sure to keep that intact while transferring the stories to a new medium. Comic books usually had relatable characters with cyclical arcs, with enough fun interactions, drama, wish fulfillment and a sprinkling of genuinely interesting ideas, to keep average readers interested for at least a year or two. The same formula seems to work for soap operas and pro wrestling. The phase one and two Marvel movies stuck very close to a formula for a reason, and now that they have latched the audience to their characters they are able to expand from the one formula into different genre formulas and not have to worry about shedding the core audience. Marvel's got strong fundamentals, which allows them more freedom to discover new successes at the periphery of their franchise.

By contrast, Star Wars has very weak fundamentals in the core trilogy now, having pulled the rug out from many of the core audience, essentially taking a comforting soap opera power fantasy and trying to deconstruct it as a critique of soap opera power fantasies, a bold strategy. Star Wars also failed to get the incidental details right, the little "nitpicky" things that might have sold the new direction of the franchise by adding coherency with what is known and loved. The result is a film that pleases the people who had attachments to Star Wars for some aspects of the franchises and disappoints people who attached on for the other parts.



Also, Marvel is great at hitting a consistent level of quality. They may not make the absolute best movies, but they know how to avoid making disappointments, which gives them a safe cushion of goodwill with the audience and a pool of feedback data to refine their approach. DC is flailing all over the place, unable to figure out what works and having to win over the audience anew with each new film.

 gorgon wrote:
It's also important to note that the MCU characters were mostly unknown by general audiences, and had little pre-existing live-action baggage to speak of. They also aren't slavishly true to the comics. What they've done IMO is create a kind of veneer of the comics version but let the movie version become its own thing. Because I'm a Cap fan, I think their treatment of Captain America is a good example.

I def agree with Iron Man and Cap A, and Marvels Thor - who I knew little about before the films - but Hulk was different I think.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
the slow blade penetrates the shield

>underrated post (exalted)

MCU doesn't work for everyone. But it does work for most of the audience, and therein lies the answer: four-quadrant film making. They don't have to be good; they just need to address the lowest common denominator. And by the way, Warner Bros has largely gotten away with this, too, despite struggling for critical appeal.

I get why people don't love the new Star Wars films, but I do feel/worry the the fanbase has essentially gotten to the place Star Trek was 25ish years ago where the sense of personal ownership in the brand and need to vet anything new makes it impossible for the franchise to stay relevant and produce anything really worth all the fandom that surrounds it. Star Trek has spent years slowly bleeding to death by timidly going where the fans thoroughly explored before and I can't help but feel that if Ep9 turns into a fan appeasement film, Star Wars will essentially be doomed to the same fate.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
It's also important to note that the MCU characters were mostly unknown by general audiences, and had little pre-existing live-action baggage to speak of. They also aren't slavishly true to the comics. What they've done IMO is create a kind of veneer of the comics version but let the movie version become its own thing. Because I'm a Cap fan, I think their treatment of Captain America is a good example.

I def agree with Iron Man and Cap A, and Marvels Thor - who I knew little about before the films - but Hulk was different I think.

Hulk was absolutely different, and I think it's interesting that it's also probably the weakest of their early films. It certainly had baggage. On one hand, there was the 'requel' baggage as it tried to find a happy place between being a sequel to the Ang Lee film and a full reboot for the character on film. On the other hand, you had a host of nods to the TV series.

It's also an example of Marvel's nimbleness, as they apparently did a course change with the character after that film. Incredible Hulk definitely laid groundwork for future Hulk films (origin of The Leader being one example), but clearly they decided the character works better alongside other heroes. And I think this is probably a wise assessment.

 LunarSol wrote:
where the sense of personal ownership in the brand and need to vet anything new makes it impossible for the franchise to stay relevant and produce anything really worth all the fandom that surrounds it

No need to worry about that. The success of TFA demonstrates that all Kennedy needed to do with TLJ was develop the fun new characters by letting them have fun, relatively linear adventures. Let's not blame the abject failure to do so on fans.

Similarly, nobody producing official Star Trek has cared what fans want since at least 2009. So there again, the constant failures have nothing to do with fans. Why not blame the people who actually make the decisions?

Turnip Jedi wrote:
Haven't seen Black Panther but suspect virtue hyping a la Wonder Woman has been a factor in taking a decent movie and getting a smidge too over excited and declaring it the best Super thing eva

Turnip Jedi wrote:
I'm all for fairness, inclusion, and wotnot but more a fan of the slow blade penetrates the shield approach rather than the "progressive" foghorn currently en vogue, but like you say its somewhat of a minefield to negotiate

Black Panther is an excellent film. I think its easily in Marvel's Top 5 overall, but I think a lot of the hype makes people forget that its still a big budget sci fi action blockbuster first and foremost and are disappointed when its not substantially more than that.

This is mildly spoilerish, but I actually think what makes it a great movie is actually that it is essentially an argument for "the slow blade penetrates the shield" over the foghorn approach. It's not in any way a preachy movie, but its core conflict comes down to the villain seeking the path of acceptance by force, while the hero comes down the side of acceptance by showing the world what they have to gain from it.

 LunarSol wrote:
I get why people don't love the new Star Wars films, but I do feel/worry the the fanbase has essentially gotten to the place Star Trek was 25ish years ago where the sense of personal ownership in the brand and need to vet anything new makes it impossible for the franchise to stay relevant and produce anything really worth all the fandom that surrounds it. Star Trek has spent years slowly bleeding to death by timidly going where the fans thoroughly explored before and I can't help but feel that if Ep9 turns into a fan appeasement film, Star Wars will essentially be doomed to the same fate.

EXALTED!

I started typing a reply, but no...I'll just say EXALTED again!

 gorgon wrote:

It's also an example of Marvel's nimbleness, as they apparently did a course change with the character after that film. Incredible Hulk definitely laid groundwork for future Hulk films (origin of The Leader being one example), but clearly they decided the character works better alongside other heroes. And I think this is probably a wise assessment.

This has little to do with Marvel/Disney's overall plan for the franchise and more to do with studio contracts. Universal owns the distribution rights to the Hulk even though Marvel Studios has the rights to the character. So any stand alone Hulk film would involve another major studio, and Disney doesn't like to share it's profits.

https://screenrant.com/no-hulk-solo-movie-marvel-universal-rights-explained/

 LunarSol wrote:
I get why people don't love the new Star Wars films, but I do feel/worry the the fanbase has essentially gotten to the place Star Trek was 25ish years ago where the sense of personal ownership in the brand and need to vet anything new makes it impossible for the franchise to stay relevant and produce anything really worth all the fandom that surrounds it. Star Trek has spent years slowly bleeding to death by timidly going where the fans thoroughly explored before and I can't help but feel that if Ep9 turns into a fan appeasement film, Star Wars will essentially be doomed to the same fate.

ST Discovery is great - really enjoying......

In the same way if Last jedi had actually tried to do something, say build on Rogue One or TFA it ,ight have been recevied better by actual viewers - however this would required actual effort by the Director and his team.

Its not tthat TLJ tries soemthing new - it doesn't. - its bad because it has truely terrible plot, characters, pacing and narrative, its lazy and I felt shockingly bad considering how much money was flung at it. IMO of course

If the Director had tried to do something new it might have been good. If he had the talent which base don that film - he doesn;t.

 LunarSol wrote:
I get why people don't love the new Star Wars films, but I do feel/worry the the fanbase has essentially gotten to the place Star Trek was 25ish years ago where the sense of personal ownership in the brand and need to vet anything new makes it impossible for the franchise to stay relevant and produce anything really worth all the fandom that surrounds it. Star Trek has spent years slowly bleeding to death by timidly going where the fans thoroughly explored before and I can't help but feel that if Ep9 turns into a fan appeasement film, Star Wars will essentially be doomed to the same fate.

TOS: TO boldly go, mid level politcal commentary, bright hope for the future.

Next Gen: To boldly go, low level political commentary, bright hope for the future, different story every week with no real repercussions for the last weeks themes.

DS9: Static cast, mid level political commentary, bleak hope for the future, continuing overarching story with repercussions for characters choices, deep character development.

Voyager: To boldly go, low level political commentary, back to basics, mix of continuing story and normal lack of repercussions.

Enterprise: Tried to be TOS and mix in the best parts of all the previous treks, failed terribly due to bad cast and rinse and repeat trek stories.

Discovery: Tried to mix in modern "SJW" political commentary with a bleaker look at the trek universe, it failed horribly at that, Trek at its heart has always been about diversity, so thankfully it didnt get bogged down with any of that, but showed a more interesting trek universe where the Feds are seen at the bad guys (because they are to the Klingons), all in all its still trek but with a nice twist.... shame the ending of series 1 was so crap.


All of the new films have been universally crap.

So I must disagree with your assessment that its was slowly bled to death, it was going strong until Enterprise and then it was beaten to death with the new films, so badly that even I couldnt watch them (and i love sharknado), its easy to blame the fans, but its not the fans, its the general public that makes and breaks these films, with major influence from the producers, the will totally rape a franchise to make a few bucks with no thought to how and why people liked them, the new trek films and new wars films prove this quite solidly.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Its not tthat TLJ tries soemthing new - it doesn't. - its bad because it has truely terrible plot, characters, pacing and narrative, its lazy and I felt shockingly bad considering how much money was flung at it. IMO of course

If the Director had tried to do something new it might have been good. If he had the talent which base don that film - he doesn;t.

Opinions and all that. I left TLJ a bit uncertain how I felt about it; it certainly goes out of its way to keep the viewer uncomfortable. As I've rewatched it since the home release its rapidly creeping up my ladder. I'm not sure its fair to compare anything to the original trilogy, but I think its rapidly becoming my favorite film since the originals. If nothing else, it leaves me with the feeling I was looking for in the prequels and has me interested in what they could build from here.

 Formosa wrote:
its easy to blame the fans, but its not the fans, its the general public that makes and breaks these films, with major influence from the producers

I agree, it has nothing to do with fans. But neither is the general public to blame. Producers have taken over a lot of the decision making from directors. They are the ones ultimately responsible. They may make decisions because of what they think general audiences want but these are still their decisions.

The idea of blaming fans is just same old-same old bullying. "Stupid nerds, amirite?"