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Post by movieliker on Mar 28, 2024 18:50:38 GMT 1
According to this video, the MCU was consistent. And the DCEU was not.
Consistently the MCU often (not always) had the same style. Whereas the DCEU kept changing styles and directions. Making it hard for fans to stick with it.
What do you think?
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Post by AQUA CAT! on Mar 28, 2024 20:11:11 GMT 1
I will watch the video, but I have a take to offer. From my point of view, the MCU built-up some of its lesser known characters outside of fan circles of the comics. I had a passing familiarity with Iron Man via the 90's cartoon. I had a passing familiarity with Captain America because of one appearance in the 90's X-Men and 90's Spiderman series that I recall. I knew of Thor, but that's it. For me, the introduction to these characters was a fresh start that I could follow. The core Avengers weren't done to death in the world of movies. There were places to take them because no films had made a serious attempt to take them anywhere, so the runaway was clear. My passing familiarity with them almost immediately didn't count when it became clear how new they really were to me when I saw their movies. That was the key. They weren't done to death. It was new learning material. I'd never heard of Black Widow before. For a while, I thought she was going to become Scarlet Witch because of her red hair.
It could be that the X-Men were well into their franchise and there had been the entire Tobey Maguire Spiderman trilogy out, but the MCU characters just had new smell for me. It played off The Dark Knight, in my opinion, by making their existence conceivable in our world. Iron Man is an industrialist who built his own suit because he's in the military contractor's game. RJD, in my opinion, pulled off a character for whom it makes sense to make his suit those colours. Similarly, Captain America makes sense as a propaganda mascot who wore his costume as a uniform and kept it as a symbol. Thor's mythological and always looks/dresses like him. Hawkeye and Black Widow were a stretch, but believable because their jobs are elite special agents. The MCU attempted to make plausible the outfits of its characters. I would argue its world-building was easier to follow too, whereas the DCEU hurled me into its world and expected me to know what's going on.
The DCEU, in my opinion, developed too hastily in response to the MCU. The MCU took its time because they were there first. By the time the DCEU was rolling, it seemed clear they were following the MCU's business model as it was still being made. In the earlier days of the MCU, the cinematography felt better too, in my opinion. Later on, not so much, but in the first phase, their outfits looked more realistic. Today, RDJ could probably do it all while an Iron Man suit is edited onto him, but in the first Iron Man, it looked like a suit he really wore. The DCEU just felt too soon and not as earned because it leaned in with its most well known characters while the MCU took real risks.
For me, it's like the Star Wars paradox. Today, you could throw the name Star Wars onto anything and make money, but people forget it wasn't always like that. It's been even less time for the MCU. It's not that old, and it wasn't a given when they trotted out the first Iron Man that the MCU would be as successful as it is. The risk factor was there; it's just mostly been washed away by the ensuing success, but it started with big risks. That carried on to Guardians of the Galaxy, who I'd never heard of, and Ant-Man, who I'd never heard of. I think the DCEU expected similar results by following the formula and hoping their biggest characters would compensate for starting late. The DCEU, for me, really took off because of Wonder Woman, and for the same reason: a Wonder Woman movie hadn't been done before.
Sorry for the lengthy take. I'll watch the video.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Mar 28, 2024 21:25:29 GMT 1
According to this video, the MCU was consistent. And the DCEU was not. Consistently the MCU often (not always) had the same style. Whereas the DCEU kept changing styles and directions. Making it hard for fans to stick with it. What do you think? Well, the stuff laid out in the video is certainly a big part of the reason for the MCU s success and the DCEUs failure.
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Post by WOLVERINE JACK! on Mar 28, 2024 21:46:26 GMT 1
Consistency of style was never the problem, and certainly not the reason for the failure. First of all, in terms of tone- the shift towards lighter and less brooding actually made Wonder Woman and Aquaman their biggest hits. And as far as visual style goes they were consistent— even through The Flash they all had that same extremely unnatural color timing and the costume design all had the Snyder aesthetic. The characterization of all of them was also basically Snyder’s vision. So if anything its that they doubled down on a singular vision that did not resonate with the masses
I also don’t think consistency in style is the main reason for Marvel’s success either. In fact I think leaning into that is a big reason why Phase 4-5 movies have struggled to make an impact. The biggest Marvel movies were usually the ones that contained the most freshness- Iron Man, The Avengers, Guardians, Winter Soldier, ect
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Post by LokisMom on Mar 28, 2024 22:19:02 GMT 1
Without having seen the video, my take is the MCU had an anchor in the All-Father Stan Lee himself (or was Stanley Lieber, kid from the family business Timely Comics, really Lo-ki?)
How much input he had in guiding the movies up to End Game, I don’t know, but my guess is Kevin Feige’s production teams always wanted his blessing.
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Post by Lord Death Man on Mar 28, 2024 22:37:26 GMT 1
The analysis of the MCU and DCEU (RIP) may continue long after both have ceased to be relevant.
It's simple, DC got off to a late start and then made illogical creative choices to try to catch up. In a way, they were doomed to fail out of the gate, but many bizarre and unbelievable circumstances helped the franchise slip into an early grave. The failure of the DCEU is the greatest unforced error in the history of cinema.
By the time DC/WB fully committed to a shared universe, Marvel/Disney already had a full head of steam. There would have been no real point in copying Marvel's strategy of slowly building up unknown characters, as that would have seemed blatantly derivative. Instead, they decided to bring their biggest guns to the party (i.e., Justice League, Batman, and Superman) without realizing it wasn't that kind of party.
I always thought that greenlighting a Justice League movie so soon in the cycle and a grudge match between their two most powerful and popular characters came from a place of desperation, and not the faux strength they were desperately trying to telegraph. It felt like they didn't have faith in the characters' ability to shine independently and just wanted to use shock and awe as their primary tool to secure fan loyalty and engagement.
It's also worth noting that - and I can't say this strongly enough - toxic DC fans, by and large, bought shit energy to the table. They didn't care about the stories or the details; they just wanted somebody good-looking to get into the tights and do the things. Even as they were getting the senseless and incomprehensible tripe they campaigned for, they couldn't help but spin up their masturbatory dreams of the next musclebound shithead who was gonna get in the tights and do the things. In the end, getting new characters to market was all they cared about. You get the quick dopamine hit of seeing the new power-set on screen, then you go back to brooding and complaining because deep down, you know it was all just empty CGI-calories.
With the success of the MCU, Marvel fans who'd invested in the comics for years without significant cinematic representation were just happy to be in the conversation—let alone shaping it.
For their part, toxic DC fans stalked their counterparts in the MCU fandom, preaching a gospel of how the MCU's success was a fluke and that it would end soon because no one really knew or liked the C-List characters being introduced. Nothing could compare to the holy trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, and when they came, the MCU fandom would be made to bend the knee. They wanted to dominate, leading the studio on a wild goose chase with conflicting messages on handling tone.
When Snyder and WB dropped the Dawn of Justice announcement, toxic DC fans knew they'd found their Christ figure who would level the MCU with mature adaptations where jokes happened on pain of death.
Real DC fans, with a life-long love for the properties, stories, and worlds of the universe, were too weak to drown out their roided counterparts.
After a while, WB decided it would be best not to listen to any of them. The executive knew they'd lost the game after Justice League, and all that was left to be done was to see how quickly they could strip-mine the IP for second homes and one-off bonuses.
It might take a generation to repair the damage and for people to remember how significant the DC Universe once was in the cultural conversation.
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Post by movieliker on Mar 29, 2024 0:02:31 GMT 1
Without having seen the video, my take is the MCU had an anchor in the All-Father Stan Lee himself (or was Stanley Lieber, kid from the family business Timely Comics, really Lo-ki?) How much input he had in guiding the movies up to End Game, I don’t know, but my guess is Kevin Feige’s production teams always wanted his blessing. The video is only 10 minutes long. You don't have 10 minutes?
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Post by primemcgee on Mar 29, 2024 1:26:07 GMT 1
The main factor is that Marvel was using second tier characters who had never appeared much in media (Iron Man etc) or ones that were not associated with superheroes (the Hulk), while DC was using its flagship characters which already had been well-used in various media.
Marvel was able to avoid oversaturation (until Spider-man was added).
Steve Ditko was said to have felt adding Spider-man into the MCU (in the comics) was a mistake--that it took away Spider-man's special qualities (Doctor Doom lurking behind a neighborhood fence in search of Flash Thompson wasn't dignified either).
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Post by Merv on Mar 29, 2024 3:23:24 GMT 1
Theres a few good points in the video but I don't really think consistency was the problem. The DCEU had a lot more issues than that, including several things the vid mentions like poorly written films and the studios meddling the entire time. But I don't really think the change in tone between say Man of Steel and Wonder Woman had that great a negative impact. You could argue that many of them lacked the general appeal that an MCU film provides. But that could just as easily be seen as a negative as it often has for the MCU. The bottom line is that the DCEU films just weren't as well done on a lot of different levels and they set their bar at the MCU, which is a height that no franchise may see again any time soon.
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Post by ])-Kyle "Wild Child" Gibney-([ on Mar 29, 2024 21:27:21 GMT 1
Simply put bad management. You had a guy called Toby Emmerich who rushed the dceu to get his bonus. Release of the Snyder Cut and the date and day release mandated by Warner suddenly says it all really. Emmerich ousted as soon as Zaslav came onto the scene. Batgirl written off lol...
People just want a good story and to be entertained at the end of the day. DC failed both with some individual stories and the overall shared universe story
Black Adam wasnt well received critically or financially but I thought the film was decent enough. The Justice Society is probably the most interesting thing to come out of the entire dceu
Aquaman 1, Flash (too late in the game...) and Gunn's Suicide Squad were also highlights for me
Did not care for Superman, Joker (not in the dceu universe though), Shazam or Wonder Woman. No Batman movies until recently? And where was Superman 2? Really?
There was no single superhero you could follow or get behind. With the mcu you had three. Maybe even more. Cap, Thor and Iron Man. Star-Lord. Spider-Man. Right out of the gate Black Panther was very well-liked
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Post by Indiana Jones on Mar 30, 2024 1:18:00 GMT 1
Just too much inconsistency. For every step forward, there was a step back. As I mentioned elsewhere and ])-Kyle "Wild Child" Gibney-([, the direction under management was just all over the place. Partly because the management itself kept changing or not caring. Hell, there was the one exec (was it Kevin Tsujihara?) that seemed more focused on keeping his mistress happy than overseeing a cinematic universe.
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Mar 30, 2024 2:18:48 GMT 1
The MCU was the tortoise...the DCEU was the hare.
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Post by LokisMom on Apr 1, 2024 18:11:11 GMT 1
Without having seen the video, my take is the MCU had an anchor in the All-Father Stan Lee himself (or was Stanley Lieber, kid from the family business Timely Comics, really Lo-ki?) How much input he had in guiding the movies up to End Game, I don’t know, but my guess is Kevin Feige’s production teams always wanted his blessing. The video is only 10 minutes long. You don't have 10 minutes? Do I have to look at it?
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Post by LokisMom on Apr 1, 2024 18:21:45 GMT 1
Just too much inconsistency. For every step forward, there was a step back. As I mentioned elsewhere and ])-Kyle "Wild Child" Gibney-([ , the direction under management was just all over the place. Partly because the management itself kept changing or not caring. Hell, there was the one exec (was it Kevin Tsujihara?) that seemed more focused on keeping his mistress happy than overseeing a cinematic universe. Marvel had its own production company running back to 1990s, so going into Phases era with this artistic and business foundation in place has made the difference so even when the MCU puts out a turkey, it doesn’t stink up the franchise for years or destroy the character.
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Post by movieliker on Apr 1, 2024 18:38:11 GMT 1
The video is only 10 minutes long. You don't have 10 minutes? Do I have to look at it? Of course not. Although I'm sure all your posts are intelligent and inciteful, you may find that short video informative and educational.
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Post by AQUA JAR!™ on Apr 3, 2024 4:27:23 GMT 1
Snyder intentionally made long serious "epic" films.
Filmgoers weren't as into that as they were the MCU fluff.
Pretty simple.
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