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San Francisco, 4:43 PM
Mon Nov 23
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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07:42 AM
And yes, let's stay away from Punisher movies shall we?
06:51 AM
Also loving the giant Superman. And why does Spidey have a 'King Kong' complex!??
06/16/09
This is right up there with Top Ten Science Fiction Comedies as a completely lame list from IO9 where you violate your own conditions, not to mention logic and I'm beginning to think at the heart of it is some odd quest to make people like Mystery Men. This is IO9's version of "fetch" and it's not going to happen.
06/16/09
Charlie stated "almost every superhero movie follows a drab formula, walking us through the good guy's origin story"and every film on your list falls into that category. This list is about interesting ideas and concepts that other filmakers should take note of. It's not a "best superhero movies" list.
06/16/09
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06/16/09
In the comics the character usually had to have a few successful adventures before anyone pretended to care where they came from. I mean - cut to the chase!
The logic behind the obligatory 'origin' seems to be that audiences simply will not believe a man can climb a wall if we don;t see the 'bitten by spider' part.
Yet we are capable of watching star trek without seeing the invention of the di-lithium extraction process.
Audiences will be happy with a simple introductory sentence as long as the first scene involves explosions and some freaky powers.
No one cares how cheese-string man got his powers, only if he has a cool/brain twisting adventure
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Nah, what made it really cool was that he only recorded the voice as filler until they could cast the final voice talent...and then they decided it was too cool to replace.
06/16/09
Marvels as a movie would be (potentially) awesome. Not every comic book movie has to be filled from start to finish with punches and splodey stuff. A bit more humanity, with enough super effects stuff to keep people interested and sell tickets.
06/16/09
THat would be an interesting read.
06/16/09
If you have not read them, you would likely enjoy the 'Gotham Central' graphic novels. They feature Gotham City cops--ordinary people--dealing with the utterly bizarre world of the superhero. Despite the superhero context, the plots, characters, and art are all naturalistic. It seems like this could be our world if our cops had to periodically tangle with superpowers.
'Powers' covers some of the same ground (it might have been first, I can't recall exactly), but I didn't like the art style has much. But still good and worth a read if you like the concept!
@Magicant:
I've thought that 'Kingdom Come' would be a tremendously interesting film, mostly because the book features Superman facing a problem he cannot solve with his fists. From what few Superman stories I've seen and read, I've thought that he was at his most compelling when he had to make hard moral choices and have wondered if that would make a compelling movie.
06/16/09
Ever read Red Son?
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I watc...oh, wait, no that was The Phantom. Nev'mind.
@TheAlmanac:
Alec Baldwin has a knack for comedy? I'm pretty sure he can't even act. All he's really got in his bag of tricks is that "listen to how cool I sound" voice, and I respond with a resounding, "Meh."
06/17/09
06/17/09
Yeah, it can keep begging. 30 Rock makes me want to throw large objects at the TV screen, and doubly so when Baldwin is hackting his way across the screen. Triply so when he does his stupid "I'm important" half-turn in the opening credits.
06/16/09
Or to put it another way - my wife, who (to grossly over-simplify it) thinks cartoons are for kids and super-heroes are for young men, will stop everything to watch The Incredibles when it comes on.
So yes, brilliant writing and outstanding characters - I'm all for copying that.
06/16/09
Unfortunately, the Hollywood mentality is "ZOMG, Pixar movies are all CGI, and they all rake in the cash. If we make _our_ movies using CGI, they'll also be more popular!" These people need to be spanked to within an inch of their lives with a limp carp.
06/16/09
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06/16/09
1) Shamelessly mine an original text, shot-by-shot and frame-by-frame, while alienating the creator of that text and pretty much replicating everything that was weak or problematic about the original.
2) Use the superhero metaphor in order to make a fairly boring, sexist claim about what happens when women have power (i.e., they're irrational and hysterical).
4) Make an otherwise underwhelming and/or outright embarrassingly bad film which nevertheless features genre elements and can therefore get away with it because, really, comic fanboys aren't discerning filmgoers anyway, right?
5) Call in Pixar.
6) Pull the "cowboys in space" routine and make it a superhero comedy.
Charlie Jane, I love your stuff on this site and I appreciate your moving beyond the more obvious choices (The Dark Knight, Bryan Singer's first X-Men) for this list. But, at the same time, I can't help but think you aren't sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel in some cases. If by "breaking the mold" you mean "decidedly niche" or "so-bad-it's-good," then fine. But God help us if Zack Snyder becomes the inspiration for anything besides bad art school film theses.
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