#i won't even get into how disney has run the star wars brand into the ground because that's another post. but.

[astromechs]

ok i actually want to talk about this a little more, specifically with respect to a few of my favorite things: box office analysis, and industry shifts as a reflection of the wider culture.

i hear the term thrown around, and this article uses it, too — is the failure of madame web a reflection of "superhero fatigue"? in my opinion, yes and no.

is the failure of madame web related to franchise fatigue? yes and no.

while studio-produced and distributed comic book movies have existed and had success since the 1970s (think richard donner's superman, batman '89, etc), comic book movies gained real momentum in the 2000s. sony's original spider-man live action film series directed by sam raimi, as well fox's x-men movies, did pretty well at the box office; these showed studios that there was, indeed, a market here. marvel, which had sold off its film rights to its most popular characters in the late 90s when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, was now crying. additionally, nolan's 2005 batman begins was a modest success.

2008, though, with two little movies called iron man and the dark knight, heralded a meteoric rise in the popularity of comic book movies. which of course eventually brought the avengers, and — i don't need to tell you all of this.

by the late 2010s, it'd pretty much gotten to a point where anything with the marvel logo slapped in front of it printed money, everyone else wanted a piece of that pie, and hollywood had truly thought it'd found its golden goose. yes, they thought, we can keep making these forever and people will come. we don't have to put quality into them. who cares when they'll still come!

but audiences noticed this shoddy craftsmanship, these lazy films. audiences aren't as stupid as the average studio exec thinks they are — and what you've seen since particularly 2021 is people turning away from comic book movies, which have been saturating the market, as mid to low quality shit just continues to get pumped out and released.

i've been predicting the decline of the superhero movie for a while. when something dominates/saturates the market, it's inevitable; it happened to musicals, it happened to westerns. i'm not saying this as a hater, i love superheroes and have read way too many stupid comic books in my life (also was really wild to see one of my more niche interests become super mainstream in real time?), but it was always inevitable. so, combined with the decline, plus audiences getting weary of very obviously half-assed product, you get all but two comic book movies released in the past year flopping really hard.

across the spider-verse did well; it was a good movie. guardians of the galaxy vol 3 did well; i didn't personally like it very much, but a lot of people did, and it was a well-made movie from a production perspective (all of my issues with it stemmed from the script). comic book movies aren't dead and never fully will be, but people aren't willing to see halfassed shit just because it has a marvel logo slapped on it anymore.

it is bad movie fatigue, yes, but to say "superhero fatigue" isn't a thing wouldn't wholly be true; people got tired of lazy product, and superhero films were the dominant market share for big budget tentpole movies because hollywood had thought they'd found their ticket. so it's a lot of things.

articles like this are so funny

like, the reason why madame web flopped big is not deep; it's a really bad movie lmaoooo i solved it all for you

[tvmigraine]

Disney (Almost) Made an Anniversary Kamen Rider

You remember during the 2000s where Disney owned Power Rangers? It wasn't a bad era in terms of what was put out, but maybe I'm bias because I grew up with it. Running from Ninja Storm to RPM, Disney had a troubling run with the show - the quality was good for a kid's show, but Disney did not like making it. It's not a secret that they were trying to bury Power Rangers, the show only continuing after RPM because it was bought back by Saban. It doesn't feel like a coincidence they sold back Power Rangers less than a year after buying Marvel Entertainment.

And ever since, Disney has had no interest in Tokusatsu as a genre. You could argue the closest they ever came was Mech-X4, a Disney XD show about a kid controlling a giant robot to save his town.

Then rolls around the 100th anniversary. Tokusatsu is still as popular as ever in Japan and, while Super Sentai isn't as popular as it used to be, Kamen Rider has been going strong ever since it's revival in the Heisei Era.

If Disney wanna make money in Tokusatsu, it makes sense to put it in Kamen Rider.

This is the Imagination Belt. It was released last month and, honestly, I'm glad I got back into Kamen Rider in time to see the strangest anniversary celebration yet. It was produced by Bandai and I won't pretend this is officially a Kamen Rider product - it's made by the same company, but that's not enough to call it that.

But it sure takes a lot of the beats!

As a person who has previously rambled about a non-existent canon surrounding a Sonic Screwdriver toy, I really appreciate that this gives me more to talk about inherently. Kamen Rider historically has been getting more and more Riders with every era of the show and this toy is no different - ten different Disney icons made into marketable... keys... how did they not do Sora-

Nevermind, I'm glad they didn't.

The designs aren't great, I won't pretend they are, if you're a fan of Kamen Rider. It's clear the character designs were leaning closer to Kingdom Hearts (or even Spectrobes, if you remember that), so it's hard to judge them in terms of your typical Tokusatsu outfit. That being said, the consistency of the goggles does imply something about this uniform - if it's as important as the belt to be included on everyone, that's notable.

There's also a notable detail with the Imagination Belt itself - the Keys. Half of them are Gold, half of them are Silver, inherently splitting the team of Riders (Imaginators? Imagineers? Disney Adults?) in half. It implies simply that the goals of all the Riders don't align, that perhaps they're in a battle.

The Character Selection is also brought to mind. I imagine it's based on multiple factors, like popularity in that area and inclusion of specific brands... but that doesn't stop them being weird. Including specific representatives for Marvel, Lucasfilms and Pixar absolutely make sense - the choice of Woody is textbook. Iron Man equally makes sense, but the design has him look (personally) more like Lightning McQueen, which may just be a flaw of similar colour schemes.

But Grogu? Ya coulda picked anyone from Star Wars and... I get that The Mandalorian is probably the best received in pop culture... but the implications that he's getting his powers from a space baby is quite funny.

NOTE: The specific split of teams is Gold Keys belong to Mickey, Minnie, Simba, Woody and Iron Man - Silver Keys belong to Snow White, Moana, Tiana, Elsa and Grogu.

They also have built in power-up modes, specifically "Full Max" which seems to grant a power boost based on related characters - Mickey's Full Max gets help from Donald, Goofy and Pluto, meanwhile Simba has Timon and Pumbaa for example. But in your typical Tokusatsu, if your power-up involves other iconography, that tends to involve beating monsters. Are the monsters for "Imagination Belt" other Disney characters? Were Donald and Goofy evil beasts that had to be defeated? Did Woody have to beat Buzz Lightyear and the other Toys-Turned-Monsters? Minnie's Full Max is her with a cat, did Minnie Mouse have to fight a CAT?!

But onto the Lore Implications...

There's easily enough here to build an insane fanfiction, as you're about to see, but this does continue a point that I really appreciate about toys - kids, collectibles, whatever you want. You can tell your own story and it's not even difficult. Everyone has inherent creativity and, given a small amount of time, you can make any story out of any objects.

Case in point...

"Imagination Belt", to me, feels like Ryuki or Geats - it is a Rider War (Disney Adult War) where these two factions of "heroes" are fighting. It's probably against each other, Gold vs Silver, but you can imagine there are other monsters in between as your usual plot hooks.

The "Riders" of this world likely have their powers from raw imagination - passion for something that manifests in the Keys, giving them power in return. If the imagination becomes twisted.

Based on appearances, the Iron Man and Grogu Riders probably are leading both teams, the conflict started by the both of them and spiraling from there. Mickey is the obvious protagonist, Grogu looks like he'd make a good rival to keep the protagonist moving forward.

And there may be only ten official keys but Disney is an all-consuming black hole of creativity. There could be a lot more and you know it.