#just like you have to accept that the movie fans intake the marvel characters differently than comic readers

[yeslordmyking]

When do we stop shaming people for not having read the comics? Dead serious. It's time to accept that maybe not everybody can find every Moon Knight, Spiderman, and She-Hulk issue cover to cover and read it.

Cuz my Marvel Comics app charges like $15 per issue when there's oh maybe about 12000 comics from the past 50 to 80 years I need to read to understand the MCU and I only get the first 4 pages of each for free. I have no choice but to google the most iconic pages of Civil War or YouTube videos that have to paraphrase 45 X-Men issues in 12 minutes to explain the ToP 15 EaStEr EgGs YoU mIsSeD iN tHe fInAlE oF lOkI, or Marvel Wiki in hopes to understand slivers of the dynamic of character's relationships, the scope of their powers and abilities, every B list character's background story, who hasn't Tony Stark gone out with, the moral ambiguity of the Punisher, who joined the Avengers and then quit and then rejoined and then quit again, why Felicia Hardy is an Iron (?) Cat (?) etc etc etc and hope to understand characterisation, tone, and accuracy of events in order to judge the quality of cinematic adaptations to source material I only have access to like 6% of.

So next time you want to explain how every MCU movie is unwatchable and when someone who likes it disagrees you retort with "they've never read the comics" like please send a check for three hunnit to get them started on some comics, Mr Geekier-Than-Thou Comic Guru. C'mon buddy, help me out, open your purse. Otherwise like honestly shut up. I can't speak for everyone, but my lack of comic reading is because I'm lower middle class and don't have hundreds of dollars to gain access to a century of comics. Not because I'm an illiterate neanderthal that can only take in information through pretty moving pictures or whatever elitism fans with access to comics have. I have many hobbies that I can't sustain financially. Others don't have enough time to sit down and read 90 Fantastic Four issues. Some people just don't care because paper pages don't explode on in 3D with action music blasting in the background.

And thank you to all the nice geeks that don't gatekeep Marvel and make helpful videos or internet posts that are meant to help guide people into better understanding of the comics and how the movies pertain to them. Especially the ones that were there when the MCU was just in phase one. And even the OG Spiderman, F4 and X-Men films before then. It couldn't possibly cover everything, but it's helped a lot through the years ❤️

[knightofwalpvrgis]

Feeling Good About Fantastic Beasts 3 (Discussion/Rant)

I just wanted to put out a post because I’m getting a little weary about some of the negative Fantastic Beasts talk. As a fan of all things Potter, Rowling, Beasts, and Wizarding World in general, I try not to come across as the delusional fanboy whenever I can, but even with acknowledging, accepting, and sympathizing with some of the criticisms of Crimes of Grindelwald being made by critics, fans, and the general audience, I also realize that there’s a huge environment of pre-determined and melodramatic hatred that is poisoning honest discussions about the franchise, the story, and Rowling’s writing, to the extent that you can’t make a post about it on Reddit or anywhere without someone scoffing at you or calling the film “one of the most poorly received films of all time” - an honest to god quote from someone on the r/BoxOffice forum in regards to the film. People really gatekeep on here, if you try to talk about FB. It’s like you *have* to dislike and dismiss it.

First, I’d like to address the box office, and be somewhat realistic about what we can expect from the Fantastic Beasts franchise:

1) I don’t think Warner Bros, Rowling, and the creatives thought that making a five film story, starring mostly completely unknown characters, with no books to adapt it from, with no brand recognition for the Fantastic Beasts title, would be easy or as lucrative as Potter. I think this is where people are faltering in their observations of Beast’s success and maybe it’s lack thereof: it doesn’t have the literary phenomenon behind it that Potter had, that extended to the franchise name itself. They had to have known that such a film franchise had a high, almost complete chance of not performing as well, and definitely expected more erratic dips and rises in box office intake, as well as fan and critic reception. I think the fact that people were so quick to turn on the entire Fantastic Beasts franchise, not to mention Potter and Rowling as a whole, after one “misfire” (relative to the Potter franchise) indicates that we really aren’t thinking rationally here. 653 million dollars worldwide is the low end for Marvel. This is the Wizarding World’s first and only critical non-success. It even came after a hugely successful film, that was remarkably unprecedented in its success. Why? It had absolutely no recognizable characters, settings, no discernible proof of concept, and a title that had no brand associated with it, yet people, including in the US, showed up for it, beating out a Marvel film that opened just before it. It was the first film in the series to win an Oscar, it won BAFTAS. It received good reviews from critics and fans, and good enough WOM to hold really well. Why are people so down on a franchise that, despite its apparent commercial unviability, (relative to its predecessors, that is) had an opener that did extremely well in every possible way? It is still showing up in highest grossing Blu-Rays for 2019! So the success is carrying over.

2) The Crimes of Grindelwald was, all things considered, a disappointment domestically, but a moderate financial success overall. It garnered BAFTA and guild nominations. The WoM wasn’t the best, but wasn’t as disastrous as those few fans who emotionally despised the story made it out to be. The film bested the first’s global opening, and earned 494 million overseas while increasing and stagnating in most global markets, including significant increases and good performances throughout continental Europe and much of Latin America and East Asia. It’s hold in the US wasn’t good, but it didn’t “crash” as some people stated. And so far, the film is one of the best performers in 2019’s ancillary market, being in the top 5 best selling Blu-Rays and DVD’s for the year in the US, and showing much better user reviews and WOM across Amazon and HBO streaming. It’s ended up in the top 10 highest grossing films of 2018, even with films like Avengers: Infinity War taking up much of the worldwide movie-going audience’s money for the year.

I accept the need for skepticism here, and know why heavy skepticism exists among those who are comparing it to the success of Harry Potter, or even franchises like Marvel, but really guys, this franchise doesn’t need to make it to a billion dollars for a film, or be a runaway phenomenon, to be a success in its own right.

In short, the negative hot takes about the Fantastic Beasts series “probably not making it to 5 films, having to make drastic changes to the creative team, kicking out Yates and Rowling, needing to soft-reboot the story,” aren’t realistic. The collective gross of the first two films and the unexpected success of FB1, not to mention its great performance in the ancillary market, means we are sure to get the complete five films, even if they have to adjust the budget and make minor changes going forward. Rowling has a vision for the series that WB is confident in, and they won’t throw it away because of one misfire. Rowling knows the end of this story.

I don’t know why it’s happened, but the fact that everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten and ignored the track record of this franchise, and the built-in, locked down global audience of fans that it has, to the extent that it can make an unknown name like Fantastic Beasts become a success, that the Potter and Beasts films are still massive sellers years (and, for the former, nearly a decade) after the film’s release, goes to show that this franchise will always have an audience that will attend the films to keep them from losing money or outright flopping at the box office. It is just one of those franchises.

This isn’t like Star Wars, which recently had an installment fall to 300 million at the global box office and only grossed 100+ million worldwide, because it doesn’t have the global audience or consistent acclaim that Potter has. It OF COURSE isn’t like the Divergent franchise, which never performed as well as Beasts, let alone Potter. “Bad word of mouth” for one film can only go so far in damaging this series, and I believe with Fantastic Beasts 2, we’ve seen it’s bottoming out - in the US. I don’t believe the next films will fall to any notable extent below 653M WW at the box office even if they fall, bad reviews or not. The global nature of the story, as has been indicated by the box office trend of FB2, means we’ll have even more of a built in global audience for those who want to see their Wizarding community depicted.

Also, 2021 is not as active a year for huge blockbusters as was 2018 or 2019. I expect it to be able to gross more without as many films throughout the year competing for global audience’s attention and money.

FB2 was trending for a much higher opening. It only ended up being a lower opener because of the unprecedented negative reviews for a Potter film, combined with the crowd that insisted on boycotting it. But the people that saw FB2 will almost all return for 3, and general audiences will go to see it if it looks interesting. That’s it.

As far as creative criticisms go, I don’t subscribe to the notion that Rowling is necessarily a “bad screenwriter”. That certainly wasn’t what people were saying about her when FB1 came out. Many actually said the opposite: that she was a great screenwriter. And then FB2 came out, and people flipped completely on that opinion.

The real problem of FB2 is the time constraints put on a story that is too dense and long for them. Therefore, the editing in post made her story flow, develop, and breathe worse than it would have if most of those scenes were left in, and she was allowed a longer film. This problem, combined with audience’s usual distaste for films that don’t stand alone and film’s with slow drama and dark content pertaining to the death of infants, made the film really hard to love for many. But I don’t think the tone or the content itself should be policed: it’s still Rowling’s story.

I don’t agree that the film’s problems were anywhere near as crippling as many made them out to be. I don’t think the rote, cliché imputations of “plot holes”, and the gatekeep-y cries of “messing with canon” say anything about whether the film, or the story, is good or not. You should not be basing your opinions of an entire film and story on whether or not you personally agree with Queenie’s characterization, or wanted the film to be “less dark”, or because a character makes a brief appearance. Often, criticisms that are too personal don’t fall under the banner of “professional film criticism”, and I think the fact that people ignored the dynamic direction, the amazing cinematography, the strong performances, the award-winning design, and the prescient world-building and written dialogue courtesy of Rowling because they “couldn’t believe” the ending cliffhanger, is sad. And I’m not a fool: it’s very easy to see that the way a large demographic of people treated FB2 was pre-determined, dishonest, and extremely unfair and un-objective.

In any case, I think that the problems FB2 does have are being fixed with the minor adjustments needed, and the 5 film expansion of the franchise was a choice made by Rowling to be able to tell and properly develop her story with more coherency and precision: now that her story is properly set-up and developed, her plotting will become tighter and more focused. And I think positive reviews and reaction are more likely to come from that.

I think the Fantastic Beasts franchise will do fine. I want to see us as a fandom encourage Rowling to complete a story, rather than see us hope that she is forced to give up what she feels so passionately about, she tries to learn how to write in a whole different medium in order to give back to us. Don’t make Rowling take back what she said about her fans being the reason she keeps writing in this world, and think about how everyone involved in the Fantastic Beasts stories would feel, both fans and hard working creatives, if they were forced to give up on this story because of those who claimed to be fans tearing the story down.