Lurker > LinkMarioSamus

I don't know if it means anything but a YouTube channel I follow put up a poll asking if they think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and over 40% voted yes. I guess if you're deep enough in the echo chamber...

MacArrowny posted...

I think it's more that people were less hyped for DoD because Crystal Skull wasn't very liked.

Yeah I didn't hear people talking much about Dial before it came out.

At this point I'm thinking something like Trump gets 60 million votes in the presidential election while Biden gets like 70 million or something, and third-party support goes way up compared to 2020. Still think Trump has more reason to lose ground on Biden compared to 2020 than the other way around, seeing how he's no longer the incumbent and wasn't the guy that was under criminal investigation for attempting to subvert election results back then - merely at worst the guy who saw millions of people die under his watch due to his mishandling of Covid after a strong economy during his tenure beforehand.

I just remember seeing a small clip from the EFAP (Every Frame A Pause, MauLer's podcast where he and some like-minded other content creators riff on YT videos) where the Critical Drinker said something like "I think Sony would prefer a good Madame Web movie". While that is broadly speaking probably more true than not, it also seems like a ridiculously naive position to make considering a lot of horror stories about executive meddling, especially considering Sony has a history of it regarding the studio's Spider-Man movies. Doesn't help the final battle of the movie apparently involves a neon Pepsi sign, plus Johnson admitting she signed on to a different script than what was used. Not to mention the director seems to have all her prior credits in TV.

Also I'm increasingly beginning to think YT is an outlier at best and a hotbed for bigotry at worst (most of the reason this doesn't come to mind is because most of the YouTubers I follow the closest do not have far-right views). It feels like, for instance, there was a lot more skepticism towards the Barbie movie there than virtually anywhere else where the movie was heavily hyped, and I feel like I hear more bile spewed at both Captain Marvel movies there than on the rest of the Internet combined.

Speaking of which, since we derailed the conversation to the MCU earlier anyway, am I the only one who feels like there was overall too much skepticism surrounding The Marvels director Nia DaCosta pre-release, at least considering people acting like she was "inexperienced" and was hired for "diversity" reasons despite having as many prior directorial credits as Ryan Coogler did when Black Panther came out and it being just as charitable to assume Monica Rambeau's actress Teyonah Parris recommended her after they did Candyman together...then again I guess that would require people to keep track of what actors play who and who directed what. Also I guess I don't keep such a close eye on the race and gender of the people making and acting in movies, maybe because I'm not white myself? I feel like a bit of a weirdo since I watch mostly older movies and yet I tend to notice the relative lack of roles for women and POC in them more than the comparative abundance of them in newer movies.

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if there was market research indicating that women prefer to see movies with female leads and people of color movies with non-white leads (especially their own ethnicity) while men don't have as strong a preference to see movies with male leads and ditto white people for movies with white leads. Considering how stupid Hollywood executives are, it would explain a lot of crap that has come out within the past decade or so.

He made a video about Madame Web decrying the perils of studio interference, citing Sony engaging in such for both Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man series and the mixed-at-best reception to the Sony Spider-Man Universe (the supposedly official term for the collective Spider-Man-adjacent movies), and I guess because he said he wasn't "reviewing" the movie, people were confused? And decided to call him out on not having the "courage" to rip into the movie even though he specifically said he was tired of that kind of content - and who could blame him?

It actually got a surprising amount of coverage from other YouTubers...although given it seems most of the board isn't attentive towards YT I should have probably clarified that yes.

Did you guys hear about Chris Stuckmann's "not review" of Madame Web?

Fwiw I had heard of Iron Man before his movie, but I didn't really know anything about him. And apparently the MCU version has like nothing to do with his previous portrayals and was more of a self-insert for RDJ comparatively.

Actually I feel like A LOT of actors playing comic book heroes nowadays are kind of just playing themselves. I get that vibe out of Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and Brie Larson as Captain Marvel to name but a few. I personally have no problem with it though, more of an observation. If anything I find all of the celebrities in question likeable enough I find it more of a positive, regardless of the odd controversy regarding some of them.

Anagram posted...

I mean, even if you believe that Iron Man was a D-list character pre-2008, he also had the advantages of being played by an A-list actor, superheroes not being a completely saturated genre at the time, and his movie not being complete trash.

An actor widely perceived as a has-been for his run-ins with the law at the time.

And yeah like I said I feel like they made a Madame Web movie just because they wanted to make a female-led movie after Wonder Woman and especially Captain Marvel were such big hits and Marvel Studios must have decided a bunch of higher-profile heroines or super villainesses were off-limits. Apparently there was going to be a Silver & Black movie but it got re-purposed into a TV series so yikes.

Also fwiw Garfield was going to be given a third Spidey movie until he was let go for criticizing Sony's handling of the franchise.

So Biden is apparently doing better in the Democratic primaries than Trump is in the Republican primaries even though the latter party is effectively a Trump cult?

At least Sony doesn't sink a fortune into these Spider-Man adjacent movies unlike SOME studios. Then again like I said I also do genuinely appreciate how these "Sony Spider-Man Universe" movies tell largely standalone stories (key word being largely, I know they're trying to tie it into the MCU in clumsy ways), and I also appreciated the second Venom movie embracing the whacky humor as a way to distinguish it from the MCU (where the humor is more of the snarky kind) even if the script still left much to be desired.

I'm sure that's true on some level, but it felt like in late 2018 and early 2019 it felt like there was a stretch of time where ANY comic book movie could do well if it didn't run into sufficient competition regardless of how well it was received. There's a reason Aquaman is the highest-grossing DC Comics movie even above movies people talk about more like The Dark Knight and Joker, to say nothing of Venom and Captain Marvel. And all three of the movies in question (meaning Venom, Aquaman, and Captain Marvel) were met with their fair share of skepticism before release to, even if in at least one case said skepticism was dumb.

Also am I the only one tired of Sony getting hated on? People acted like they were responsible for briefly yanking Spider-Man out of the MCU when that was actually Disney's handiwork. And it's disheartening that when people do hate on Disney they hate on it for being supposedly socially progressive even though Disney reeks of playing catchup in that department, but that's another story.

With Madame Web in particular, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Sony higher-ups saw Wonder Woman and especially Captain Marvel being big hits and decided to just make a movie about whatever Spider-Man adjacent character they could use that Marvel Studios had no plans for. Too bad it turns out EVERY studio seems to have had that idea. It's definitely admirable that there have been more female-led comic book movies this decade than there had been PERIOD beforehand, but women by themselves do not sell. This is like the negaverse of the time where Hollywood executives used to justify not having female-led comic book movies by pointing to the poor performances of Catwoman and Elektra. I say this since apparently some men did express interest in seeing Madame Web just because there are so many beautiful women, so I would not be surprised if this is where the creative process began and ended at least at the executive level.

I mean Venom was bad and still made all the money.

I have another movie-related one but I won't suggest it yet to avoid request spam.

Cinergi Pictures

Another one where I remember The Runaway Guys playthrough where they kept getting it and groaning over it outside of the one time where the three of them AND the computer player teamed up to keep BAZA BAZA BAZA going. I was going to ask you to rank the Baza Baza meme but decided not to after your non-reaction to Move Faster Pokey and not getting the Should We Do Daisy on Hard meme.

Next to rank: A Day at the Races (Mario Party 2 minigame)

The Beat Goes On

Should we do Daisy on hard?

How is Adam barely winning?

I'll throw Deep Rising in there as another guilty pleasure candidate.

Lol Madame Web, we can't even stay on topic!

Kaizo Mario World

TLJ getting fodderized, good. I honestly feel like if I had seen the movie when it came out without knowledge of the fan backlash, it would have just been another Star Wars movie to me.

Move faster, Pokey!

I unironically like The Rock, but it's far from flawless. Anyway back to Spider-Man...oh the Bad Boys movies are also Sony, there's your connection!

If it matters, no I don't think Armageddon is a bad movie because Roger Ebert told me to. I wasn't even aware what he thought of the movie when I first saw Armageddon. Also fwiw his former co-host Gene Siskel actually recommended it. Roger gave the movie 1 star out of 4 when I'd give it 1.5-2 stars.

The way I understand it, Morbius was getting memed on because it was announced in 2020 and then delayed 2 years while Sony kept hyping it. Otherwise I don't get it.

As for whether a movie is so bad it's good, I'd put Batman & Robin in a borderline case since the actual plot is excruciatingly boring while the movie fails in tons of other ways (phony sets, bad costumes, dialogue full of one-liners and winks to the camera, awkward fight scenes) that get amusing because of how much they pile up. I think the first time I saw Armageddon I found it to be hilariously bad, but when I re-watched it I just found it mind-numbingly boring because of the sensory overload. Um hey Van Helsing has some cool fight scenes, but I'd call it a guilty pleasure at best and not really so bad it's good.

ProtonJon

He also liked the newest Ant-Man movie more than Black Widow, Eternals, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love & Thunder as well as The Marvels.

Highly doubt I'll actually watch Madame Web or Morbius anytime soon. The Marvels is being saved for watching with family.

8 or 9. Far from flawless but largely accomplishes what it sets out to do.

Dennis Hopper

One of the main movie guys I watch on YouTube, Dan Murrell, thought it was less bad than Morbius. He also thought it was less bad than The Marvels though.

Anya Taylor-Joy

Aecioo posted...

you edited this twice

it's impressive, the posts that you make

On this topic, I also remembered that Josh Trank explicitly cited The Fly as an influence on his ill-fated Fantastic Four movie. So obviously comic book movies should never look to The Fly as inspiration.

Wait, I just realized that Morbius has a similar premise to The Fly and Madame Web to The Dead Zone. What David Cronenberg movie is going to be dumbed down next to fit into Sony's Spider-Man Universe? Videodrome? Scanners?

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Yes

First off, I didn't see Morbius although I am VERY aware of that. Second, I meant for the most part. It's not like that affects the actual plot of the movie. Also remember if there was no pandemic Morbius would have been a 2020 release.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

so you do get it

I'm saying that's the only way I remotely understand. Even then, that's so drastically different from how I judge movies it's still hard for me to fathom - especially for a franchise I thought was drastically overhyped growing up.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

'Lenient on it' does not mean 'is someone's fave'

People have warmed up to Terminator 3 because the followups to it were Terminator Salvation (an unmitigated disaster that did nothing right), Terminator Genisys (a divisive movie due to making a beloved character into the main antagonist, and also fielding two leads who had little chemistry with each other), and Terminator Dark Fate (a very messy movie that did not live up to the hype generated around it). It's easy to warm up to a technically competent movie that makes an absolute hash of the universe lore when the followups also do that but they are less complete and well-done products! This does not mean that literally anyone takes it over Terminator 1 or Terminator 2: Judgement Day (or hell, Terminator: Resistance if they count expanded universe media, as it's pretty much the real Terminator 3 that everyone wanted)

Actually if anything I hear even more vindication for Salvation than 3...albeit mostly from people who appreciated that it was trying to do its own thing comparatively.

LightningStrikes posted...

Wonder Woman 1984 is like, a fun campy bad movie and trying to be just that. Which is a weird choice given that the first one was an unironically good film, but hey. This just seems extremely cynically retooled and pushed out the door by the studio. It is a shame because theres done really talented people involved.

Also it turns out that not only is the researching spiders in the Amazon line not in the film, it was never even a line, they literally spliced it together for the trailer from different bits of dialogue across the film. Wow.

I personally thought WW84 was more mediocre than anything, about on par with Batman Forever if we're talking DC Comics adaptations. Though I generally prefer more lighthearted comic book movies and enjoyed Jenkins's sweeping direction.

As for Sony...I swear people still allow their hatred for the studio to cloud their judgement on EVERYTHING. At least it makes more sense than hating on Disney for being 'woke', but sheesh. At least Sony has regressed away from expensive tentpoles, and I also appreciate how their "Sony Spider-Man Universe" movies are self-contained without having to worry about a bigger picture. Admittedly that's about all I appreciate about them (saw the first two Venom movies with family), but hey.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Terminator 3 is no one's nostalgic favorite

Please don't invent things to support your viewpoint

People have been increasingly lenient on it as time passes.

I don't understand how the sequel trilogy gets raked over the coals for featuring a "happy ending override" and then re-hashing the plot of the original trilogy, but older movies that are guilty of not much different like Ghostbusters II and Terminator 3 have become varying degrees of nostalgic favorite. Only thing that makes sense is they care mostly about the overarching story of Star Wars, so they don't care about comparing it to those past movies.

Paratroopa1 posted...

I do kinda sorta agree with this? I think there's a few essentials in 4/Ultimate (Villager, Mega Man, Simon Belmont - I know the latter two are third party but they're so quintessentially Nintendo that they don't feel like guest characters to me whereas Sonic/Snake do) but for the most part Brawl has all the A-listers and B-listers covered and doesn't feel like it's stretching itself to come up with ideas. I actually do genuinely think Ultimate's roster is teetering on the edge of being too big - otherwise cool characters get completely lost in the shuffle which is not how I felt in Brawl.

I remember Smash 4's roster got criticism for featuring too many characters who seemed to be there just to advertise Nintendo's newest games. Then there's all the flack the game (and to a lesser extent Melee) got for having too many clone characters. In Brawl the only real "advertisement" characters were Ike and Lucario. On the Fire Emblem front, maybe Lucina and Roy can return as clones of Marth while Ike can also stay and the other Fire Emblem characters can all go? And then for Mario characters, maybe ditch Piranha Plant and Dr. Mario in favor of Waluigi? And maybe reclassify Yoshi as a Mario character instead of a Yoshi character? Possibly also same for Wario? For third-party additions maybe Sonic, Mega Man, Pac-Man, and Bayonetta can all stay and then maybe a handful at most of hype newcomers like Crash Bandicoot, Ryu Hayabusa, and Dante while everyone else is cut?

So about Kirby, I looked it up and very few of his standard moves resemble Fighter Kirby. In fairness the issue with characters like him and Samus is that their melee-focused moves being so out-of-step with how they fight in their own games stands out increasingly with characters like Mega Man on the roster. Kirby and Samus feel like the biggest standouts on that front, since at least the likes of Mario and DK did have games where they fought similarly to how they do in Smash.

Johnbobb posted...

Kirby arguably plays the most like his own games, not counting the spinoffs

I see where you're going here, but I'm pretty sure Kirby does not fight in his games primarily by kicking. At least with someone like Mario it kind of makes sense since he did fight that way in one game, but still.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

Whats wrong with Kirby? His moveset is full of stuff from his games

His standard attacks I don't think are, but I've only experienced Kirby games through Let's Plays (might even just be the one TRG collab even). Also Kirby being like garbage tier in most Smash games.

Have a more contained cast with only a select few guest characters and fix characters like Samus and Kirby to better represent their home games?