#the cgi better than all the mcu

[sincericida]

Amazing scene from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" that had peak CGI. This scene was simply awesome. And better than all the MCU, sorry.

(Zack Snyder - like me - loves this sequence)

[leresq]

Finally watched Deadpool and Wolverine. First of all I was not coming into this with high hopes because even though everyone was talking about how good this movie is I've never found the Deadpool movies funny. To me they're just different variations of "You haven't seen this in an Iron Man movie" stretched into two now three feature length films. But honestly I liked it at the end.

- Why are Logan's ears and one of his eyes not decayed when no other part of his body is intact? Why does he have a beard on his jawbone?

- I'll bite, the Bye Bye Bye is a fun idea. The wintery forest setting is cool.

- I can't enjoy that opening fight scene because it's not how anything works. You don't get bludgeoned with a dull object, have your body armour completely give way, and have a pint of blood splash out. I understand the whole point of Deadpool is that it's over the top, but this is just so overly gratuitous it's insane. I feel like Marvel Studios felt like they had to make it so unrealistically violent to try and separate it from the mainline MCU to get the people who have Deadpool funko pops to guffaw in the theatre. It's "You haven't seen this in an Iron Man movie" with zero words spoken. Honestly incredible.

- The CGI is better than it's been recently but it's still noticeably bad

- Peter Parker's Iron Man mask is on the desk in the background! How did that even get there.

- Why is Tony's ARC reactor on the table, I thought that was pushed into the river at the funeral

- The timeline is just so incredibly fucked. I still don't understand how the X Men timeline reboot works, or how Logan fits into it; if Logan dying means Deadpool's universe collapses, that implies the Logan movie is in the X Men reboot franchise, but Patrick Stewart is in that and James McAvoy plays him in the reboot making me think it's a one off... Augh my head...

- Something looks up with John Favraeu. I don't know if his wearing a wig is supposed to be obvious, I don't know if he's just under a lot of makeup or it's CGI, it's just weird.

- Deadpool is never going to be an Avenger because Marvel Studios would rather execute everyone working for them than give up the licencing deals from making PG13 movies, and Deadpool wouldn't feel the same in a PG13 movie.

- I think any brand would let Ryan Reynolds walk all over them in muddy boots, for some reason he gets the pass to slander anyone he wants to and he gets paid by the companies to do it.

- 'I don't have a lot of v*ginal sex' 🤨 that has numerous connotations. Also can we not do sex jokes in front of 12 year olds

- I was not expecting a Deadpool movie to contain any hints of character development because the previous two instalments seemed to be hellbent on making sure I understood nothing of emotional value would ever be allowed to appear without being undercut by a sex joke.

- "I've never been a natural bottom" 🤨🤨 I thought Poolverine was just the average two male leads naturally gets shipped together thing but no they're sowing the fields

- If that Thor crying over Deadpool never comes back I will say something about it

- If they didn't want me to know Paradox was going to be a villain why would they make him British

- The 'Suck it Fox' cut to nothing being there is the only time I will accept something raising more questions than answering them at this level as funny

- "Your tailor is a predator" caught me so off guard I started coughing

- Wow I wasn't expecting them to pull the Paradox is actually evil card not even a third into the movie. Honestly a good subversion of expectations.

- How is Deadpool's universe going to evaporate in 74 hours, I thought time doesn't exist at the TVA?

- Are they going to explain why Deadpool's suit can just fix itself now. It used to keep its holes.

- Finally, I think the first time we ever hear Deadpool is from Canada in the movies! I wonder if Ryan Reynolds only wanted to play him in the first place because they're both Canadian...

- "You two gonna fuck or fight?" 🤨🤨🤨

- I actually understood the Honey Badger reference

- the FF floating platform thingy is another reference I'm surprised I got

- The Human Torch CGI is actually really cool

- "Not all of you was asleep" after waking up on his shoulder 🤨🤨🤨🤨

- Too many cameos in Cassandra's little alcove so I'm not even going to bother looking for them all

- I'm not sure if Johnny Storm's death was supposed to be played for laughs or just shock value, either way I'm not laughing I loved those movies ;(

- How does Cassandra know she's Xavier's sister if she was sent to the Void before she could walk?

- Wolvie being nice to Johnny post mortem is cool

- Nicepool having a stronger Canadian accent is a good joke, and Deadpool looking on in disgust as Nicepool talks about his dog's 'G-spot' is good. At least that's not played off as just a normal thing to say even if it is a joke

- "I identify as a feminist" could easily be misconstrued as an 'anti-woke' joke but all of the jokes of a similar calibre in this movie seem to be made ironically. Example: Nicepool is a creep

- "Where's your mask" and Nicepool points to his face actually implying his nice guy attitude is a facade for being a shitty person is actually really good

- Why is Nicepool's car surrounded by untrampled corn, how did it get there? Who grew the corn?

- Deadpool includes Colossus in his world 🥺

- Wolverine is nothing if not an excellent shit talker, and it's actually very out of character for Deadpool to actually get affected by insults

- I wish The Greatest Showman soundtrack was incorporated for more than just a third of a second

- 'Close up magic' ant man reference?

- 'There's only ever gonna be one Blade' about that...

- I think that's Apocalypse's throne in Cassandra's room? Or Thanos's

- I never thought about how both Cassandra and Xavier's powers radiate from their heads until the Juggernaut helmet scene

- Finally some real actual genuine character development that's not thrown away for a joke!!! The best part of the movie to me was Cassandra's redemptio-. Oh. Nevermind. Anyway I like it better than if it were just shoved away for a joke then she died

- Deadpool waiting for the 'extras' to clear was, to me, a good indication that he's a hero now. Caring about civilians is #1 on my makes you a good guy requirements

- "You smell something?" "Yeah you" 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

- And there it is. Nicepool's death is probably the most predictable death I've ever seen on film.

- Eastside Pharmacy?! Agatha All Along reference???

- Wolverine's helmet looks like a rubber playground ball

- Will Marvel Jesus come back in three days however?

- Staring at Hugh's abs? Same, but 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

- That hand holding ending was actually impressive, I wasn't sure what was going to happen and it actually kicked ass

- Is the guy with the mug who stared at Deadpool in the beginning Marvel's first gay character

- The introducing Logan to Blind Al is so unbelievably 'the parents meeting the boyfriend' I could die there's no fucking way that wasn't on purpose

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

i know you said a while back that youthink an animated series would be the best medium for a twilight adaptation. well, they're now making an animated series. how do you think it's going to go?

I did say something about that.

The thing is, I'm a deeply cynical person, and I don't want to rain unduly on people's parade. Hey, it might be great, and I'm always hyped for some serious 2D animation because we get it so rarely and it's never taken as seriously as it should be.

We're also getting Midnight Sun, which if there's any sticking to the source material, will be fucking weird.

I would be very happy with a 2D animated American Psycho starring teenage vampires who all sit around the table discussing "okay, but seriously, are we voting to kill a teenage girl for no reason? Please discuss"

That said, personally, @therealvinelle put my thoughts pretty well in this.

At the end of the day, any production's goal is to make money. Especially when huge IP are involved, Netflix has to make good on the investment they made to purchase the rights (no cheap feat there) as well as to make the profit they expect with a well-known IP like this, and the best way to do that is to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

To appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and this is true of any media, you have to go MCU. You have to have just enough quippy lines that people walk away thinking they liked it without remembering a single line (or if one is remembered it's a bit of a "huh, I guess that was... memorable"), good characters who are appealingly good, bad characters who are just bad enough we don't think about them too hard, and flashy CGI fight scenes that go on forever because that's the only substance to the movie.

And people love MCU because of it. They're rarely ever bad movies (some exceptions) but they're not good movies either. They broadly appeal to a very large audience, no one hates them, some people even love them and think they're the greatest films ever made, and so they will always have a pretty wide audience base.

So, I expect something similar to Twilight.

I expect the art style will be chosen explicitly to be not jarring, the vampires are not going to look weird or even too beautiful either. Every single character, but especially Edward and Bella, will be toned down to be made more palatable while still performing enough of their canon actions to not stray from the book, thus making their actions inexplicable, weird, and jarring but better that than "No, Edward really did mean her blood is his heroin" and "No, I really did fantasize about crushing Mike Newton's head like a melon".

Which is more or less what happened in the movies, actually, so look to them for an example of what I think would likely happen.

Now, I could be wrong, in which case I imagine the poor producers will be breathing in a paper bag wondering what the fuck happened.

But, you asked me what I expect.

[ladyluscinia]

Saw Venom 3 today and left feeling entertained but also perplexingly less satisfied than the previous two and kind of like they had carefully set up a tackboard and methodically pinned all the necessary parts for actual stakes I give a shit about but then handed me the thread to actually connect them while giving me an apologetic 🥺

...and then I remembered this one was produced entirely under the MCU formula (including giant CGI fight that can't be bothered to involve the narrative) and it all made sense.

Still the actors were having a blast and the shots were fun and they did go heavy handed on the Symbrock even as they left it hanging so still better than most recent MCU

[letteredlettered]

i sent you an ask a few days ago about responsible science but i guess i have to send another, because these stories are hitting me hard right now and i find them far more compelling than canon (maybe because bruce banner is Like That in approximately one movie, for ~30 minutes of screen time?) you've basically

here's a question: if you could ignore the all the terrible complications of putting fic into movie form, would you adapt one of your fics into a movie? which one(s)? i guess the character driven style isn't as typical for a movie as it is for writing, and it's a lot harder to explore characters' thoughts and memories in a visual format, but despite all that your stories strike me as being very very movie worthy, not just the long epic ones but the shorter ones exploring character dynamics

I am also obsessed with That Bruce Banner, and you are right that he appears for only about 30 minutes in all of MCU. The other Bruce Banner is Doofus Banner, who is cute and funny but not my guy. It makes me so sad.

This question is interesting. I write fic with the intention of writing a textual story; I think if it interested me as a movie, I might not write it. That is, I think most of the richness of my stories is in the narration, not in the plot or visuals or even dialogue. I do think the dialogue would be fun to hear actors say, but a lot of it works because of the POV of the story.

I mean, I'd be really happy to watch the actors who play WWX and LWJ in CQL make out, but I don't think the fics I've written in that fandom would make very interesting movies. I feel that way about a lot of things I've written--I'd also like TOS Kirk and Spock to kiss, but uh, one of the actors is dead, I'm not sure I love the idea of CGI, and honestly maybe the stories just work better as text.

I do think parts of Responsible Science lend themselves to movies. I think part of the reason was that I was writing these not as simple romances but as direct post-canon for an action movie. I was very tired of the "everyone lives at Avengers Tower now and has sleepovers" kind of fics, and really wanted to write a way of these people working together that I thought could actually happen. I think A Fine Spur; Keep Your Splendid, Silent Sun; and Let's Stop The Timewarp again are very suited to cinema. They are plot-driven and action-heavy, with some scenes that would be highly cinematic, imo.

I would worry about the actors feeling like their characters in The Kids Weren't Alright, because they'd have to cast young versions of actors we already know. And I wouldn't want The Hollow Men to be made into a movie; I think within the fanfic space, writing a fic that says, "hey, let's use white super hero characters to reflect on imperialism and racism" is a way of asking the reader to consider the media they consume in a slightly different angle; it's subversion and transformation. But if you're making that into a big budget movie, you've got a different audience and are also pouring money into white perspectives on black bodies, and honestly there's enough of that already.

I also struggle about the idea of one of my Harry/Draco fics being made into a film--would JKR profit? And even if she didn't, idk, I feel like I'd probably disagree about casting. That said, I actually feel that The Boy Who Only Lived Twice is plotty and actiony and quite cinematic, and in a vaccuum, I think it would be a fun plot to watch.

[dandelionjack]

alright. time for me to ask the question. is agatha all along worth watching? i’ve seen some surprisingly rave reviews by people who aren’t mcu fans. heard some say that this is the best marvel show so far. heard a snippet of the witches’ road song too and really enjoyed it? articles are talking that it’s the lowest budget mcu show in a while, which means practical effects and actors’ performances are being prioritised over cgi. i know there has been some controversy with the casting of a white boy to play a romani comic character… but what are YOUR thoughts, mutuals? is it good? is it queer? is it better than wandavision? is it worth overlooking the inevitably cringy portrayal of witchcraft? tell me

[rickrakontoys]

"Deadpool & Wolverine" (2024): 7/10

*no spoilers*

Generally amusing, with plenty of excessive bloody violence, potty mouth dialogue, and fun fan service-y references and cameos. Your entertainment value is proportional to your knowledge of the wider Fox-New Line Marvel movies, their behind-the-scenes drama, the current state of the MCU. I can see a lot of the gags going over the heads of the general audience.

Jackman and Reynolds have great chemistry together, giving us an unhinged odd couple, bad cop-badder cop vibe filled with stabbing and profanity. Jackman in particular delivers as a washed out mess of a Logan variant, and his redemption character arc is at the center of the movie. A lot of the film's biggest laughs come from this Wolverine's exasperation with Deadpool's verbal diarrhea.

The action scenes unfortunately lack the visceral edge of the previous two movies, and seems to try to make up for this lesser pizzazz with buckets of CGI blood, gore and needle-drops. Still, there are a few standout sequences that, despite their technical shortcomings, tickles the comic book nerd part of my brain just right. Wolverine and Deadpool fight each other on more than one occassion, with each bout reaching such absurdly violent heights as to evoke slapstick comedy.  A oner towards the end seems to gleefully homage Oldboy.

The plot feels underwritten, tonally inconsistent, and mostly serves as an excuse for fights and multiversal cameos. Attempts to add emotional depth in between Wade Wilson's zany antics don't always land. Scenes between the action tend to drag heavily. Characters too often just stand around in a room spouting exposition or jokes in the plainest manner. Shawn Levy's blocking of scenes is too flat and uninteresting, and a step down from Tim Miller and David Leitch's previous two 'pools. Even with occassional splashes of vibrant color (chiefly from Wolverine's yellow suit), scenes look washed out, lacking depth or contrast.  Thankfully the juvenile humor and gratuitous violence keeps it from being too dull, though even that eventually gets a little grating.

But clearly, no one is watching a movie called "Deadpool and Wolverine" for the plot or emotional depth. They're here to see Hugh Jackman finally don a comic accurate Wolverine suit and team up with Deadpool on a multiverse adventure. On that, it mostly delivers.

The movie often feels like a bittersweet farewell to the Fox-Marvel franchise. Something could be said of how the movie reckons with the ethics of having a powerful entity deciding which universes can live or die, how some things deemed purposeful are elevated while other things thrown out to "the trash heap" to be forgotten. It doesn't explore these themes so much as it uses the idea as an excuse for gags and jabs at both Disney and Fox (Reynolds gets away with a lot). This is definitely the most "meta" Deadpool movie, for better or worse.

But it's a silly good time nonetheless. And the cameos in the movie are actually fun and not gratuitous, with a tinge of melancholy... a farewell to a tumultuous franchise.

Will it hold up to scrutiny after the excitement of all the surprise cameos dies down? Not too sure... It doesn't feel like a natural progression of the Deadpool franchise. Like "No Way Home" was for Tom Holland's Spider-Man, it stops the series' general plotline for a cynical ploy to appeal to nostalgia, rather than be a real sequel to Deadpool 2 (heck most of the characters from DP2 are absent, and his usual supporting cast is sidelined immediately... except Peter). That doesn't mean it's not fun. Reynolds gets his Hugh Jackman team-up movie. But you could feel the corporate franchise milking behind it all. Just because Reynolds keeps making self-aware quips about Disney's greed and exploitiveness of IP doesnt make it okay.

[pastryjay]

(Mild spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine ahead) I thought Deadpool and Wolverine was fun, but i'm lowkey pissed off that it's getting praised for the same things that got Taika Waititi death threats for having in Thor: Love and Thunder. I'm not saying T:L&T was a brilliant movie, but Marvel dudebros act like the whole thing was an unforgivable sin! Even now, people are still unreasonably mad about it.

To give a few examples:

T:L&T has a scene where the CGI of a floating head hologram is not great, and it gets so much criticism for that. D&W has a scene where Deadpool's katana clearly clips straight through his body, which a lot of people noticed but weren't anywhere near as mad about it. Critiscising these kinds of flaws in both movies is good, but only focusing on the flaws of T:L&T is unfair.

T:L&T has been criticised for having too many jokes/ not being serious enough. Yet D&W has so many more jokes/ less seriousness than T:L&T, and people love it. The Thor movies have always had jokes and ridiculous moments, so it's not like T:L&T was a complete genre flip.

The jokes in T:L&T and D&W have a very similar style, D&W just has more r-rated ones. T:L&T briefly showing giant screaming goats is too silly, but multiple scenes of Dogpool in D&W is great (both are fine). T:L&T is bad/ disrespecting the MCU for having tongue-in-cheek, mockery of the genre jokes. Meanwhile, D&W is praised for having 4th wall jokes about the MCU, purposely silly cameos, jabs at DC, and jokes about how multiverses are bad. People love it! Personally, I thought the serious moments in T:L&T were more impactful than those in D&W, which balanced out its light and dark moments better. But that's just my preference.

I'm not saying D&W is getting no backlash. It is, but the overwhelming response is positive, and a lot of the same people who passionately hated T:L&T love D&W. I really did have fun watching it! I'm also not saying D&W is a bad movie or claiming that T:L&T is better than it. I'm just pointing out that there is a hell of a lot of bias there.

Some of this bias must be because people have more nostalgia over Wolverine and some of the cameos in D&W than characters in T:L&T. Mostly, I think the bias is just plain hatred for the fact that T:L&T is a Taika Waititi movie. Certain Marvel dudebros can't stand to see this indigenous, jewish creator being successful! They don't like that Taika is consistently respectful about including minorities too. Sure, I like that D&W at least includes some cool minority characters briefly, but was the use of the r slur and all the offending the woke mob jokes necessary? Nah. People who don't like Taika went into watching T:L&T expecting it to be bad, and everything confirmed it, whereas they had the opposite expectations for D&W, so they loved it (confirmation bias). I'm sorry, but the reaction to D&W compared to T:L&T just proves to me that Taika and anyone else involved with T:L&T deserved better than the vitriol they got.

[catluniscia]

Clea Strange

Doctor Strange has a wife in the comics or had I don't know relationships are at the moment, all I know is the outfit she is currently in inspiring and I wanna have fun drawing swishy clothing with rips and stuff...also I really hate that window, which I had to make by hand like 10 times because the things wouldn't line up right, I hope to make it noticeable with all my hard work. (context this was written in late September when only 2 episodes of Agatha All Along had posted)  I really hope she is in Agatha All Along, like I would like there to be more cool bad ass magic users in the universe, which is why I am excited for Agatha, but like I am also one of those who wishes the Marvel Project workers actually talked to each other and or had notes to pass along so things can line up better, Again Multiverse of Madness folks didn't know anything happening in Wandavision, and I really wish they did. I just wish Disney/marvel would stop doing quantity and did quality but you know too much to ask I guess -sips drink- I know Clea is in Multiverse of Madness, and um. I saw her outfit...it's very Marvel Movie. And yes that is a semi insult. Like her concept art for the movie is fine, I like it, but something about it going from Concept to movie something happened and it went from fine, to eh, like it's better than the whole CGI made costumes cause CGI folks aren't unionized yet and there for over worked, but like I don't know maybe the photos I saw aren't that good quality, Mind you online its only like one photo and it isn't even a full body one. Or its badly photoshopped, or AI, which god don't get me started on that rant. Also when looking up I found out there is this fan trailer for Doctor Strange 3 and Google it keeps acting like its legit and like its so obviously fan made it looks...y'all remember when you would photoshop yourself to your fave character, or do ship art? And the quality was clearly photoshopped? That's what the trailer thumbnail looks like to me, like No shit onto the person making this fan trailer, like find your joy would love some more bad ass ladies in the MCU but GOOGLE its clear and bloody obvious its a fan trailer please stop acting like it's legit.  Sorry I think I just zoned out and started ranting about google trying to show fake things as legit as well as complaining about costuming directions in modern movies. UUUUHHHHHH Anyway this is the full art, and I am rambling like crazy and should take a nap, please enjoy this artwork I did and all the texture and detailing. I want a nap and a cookie.

[curtvilescomic]

Kraven The Hunter - spoiler-free

So, I went to see this movie

It is a part of much-maligned Sony's Spider-Man villainverse and as it seems it is ( at this point) the final installation in that series. I enjoy the Venom films. As someone who has watched movies and superhero movies since the eighties the three Venom movies have The spirit of 1990's and 2000's movies but they are way better. Madame Web is a good bad movie, it has good cast but it is so awkward it is endearing. Then there is Morbius. Which started way better than I expected. But that is a bad, bad movie.

Kraven The Hunter is a glorious swan song. I hear it is critically panned and deemed a failure, a flop. That is shame number one.

I had trust in this having seen the directors previous film, A Most Violent Year. J.C.Chandor can make taut crime movies that have character side and the plot.

The titular Kraven is played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

And he commits. There is brooding, arrogance and certain hint of mental instability in his performance. His russian heritage makes him automatically antihero if one a) has excess of two braincells and b) has at all followed current events of...say the past 90 years.

His family connections to russian mafia/organized crime ( bratva) are done pretty nicely. Casting Russell Crowe as his father was genius. That dynamic works.

They changed Calypso too.

See? In comics she wears next to nothing as voodoo priestess of sorts but here she is subliime thanks to Ariana DeBose.

It is a streetlevel superhuman gangland/actionthriller. Felt like Gangs of London with some added superpowers. " But it does not have Spider-Man! What point is there to have a non-Spider-Man Spider-Man movie?" say those same people who complain when they see Batman origin story told the tenth time.

This does what I presume was the concept: provide the villain's origin story to show what Spider-Man will be up against.

Kraven and Venom are the strong contenders out there. Yes some CGI is not the best, but have seen worse. Some from MCU. And were this, as is, an original IP they would compare it to the first Darkman,

Not perfect but good and remember I said "first shame"? When I left the theatre I knew that the biggest shame is if all this is lost. I would love to see movie adaptation of the classic Kraven's Last Hunt. And not as a PG-13.

[sincericida]

Scene from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014, dir Mark Webb)

This movie still has the best CGI I have ever seen. They have nailed the VFX, especially the lighting on his suit when the ⚡ passes by. We don't get to see that level of detail nowadays (MCU). Fact, none of the CGI in the MCU films hold up even close to this well. Garfield is the best Peter and Spidey. That's it.

[twilightkitkat]

Okay so the Laura snippet got out of hand *sigh* and since I have trunk or treat my church I'm not sure when it'll get done but I'm cooking.

Anyways another thought I had a while ago and something I've considered doing myself.

Ghost Rider was supposed to be the movie and I think it's a travesty that people have not put him in through fanfiction. Thoughts opinions anything?

(It's been so long since I've seen those movies and I'm genuinely considering going back and reading reviews and stuff because someone needs to make something with him in it.)

Oooo I'm excited to see where your story with Laura goes, she's so interesting as a character. Her interactions with the other X-men would be hostile as hell and I'm here for it.

I don't know much about Ghostrider, but I looked into him a bit and his plotline is very fascinating. I think it'd be interesting to see his dynamics with the current Marvel cast and to tap into how the older protagonists would cope with the current state of the MCU. The villains are a lot more impressive because of CGI and also the characters all are in completely different states than before.

Similar to this, I think it'd be funny to see Deadpool and Wolverine time travel to back when the Avengers were all still together and see how the X-men and Avengers would interact. Especially with Logan and Wade from the future. The Avengers are used to being The Big Heroes and then these two fuckers come in and do their job better than them without the squabbling. The X-men would also be confused as hell.

[burningfudge]

Heyyy, I finally saw the Marvels with my family! OH MY GOD, what a truly unhinged movie. I was fighting for my life for most of it, just basically being like:

What do you think of it as a movie, btw?? There’s so much I like, from the singing planet, to Kamala and her entire family, to the scene where all the Flerkens eat the entire ship(!!). It’s incredibly ballsy — but also, WOW there’s some stuff I don’t like. It’s so goddamn fast paced that nothing has time to breathe, the villain is not very interesting, and I think the way the fight scenes are shot makes the CGI really hard to look at… in terms of looks from the original to this, it’s like comparing Spy Kids to Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. Oof.

But I still had a LOT of fun, and I don’t really regret it. It’s probably still better than the Flash on account of pure dignity — and I guess to someone who knows these characters better than I do, I suppose the logic of the film makes more sense? My dad was confused by Kamala’s ability to use her powers without the bangles, and I still haven’t seen Ms. Marvel yet… so I might need an explanation on that myself. 😅

I liked the movie! I thought it was fun. Carol, Kamala, and Monica's dynamic was so much fun to watch, and every scene with Fury and the Khans cracked me up! Goose was amazing, too.

But yes, the movie could've been a lot better. I do think they could've added 15 or so more minutes because, like you said, it was so fast and had no time to breathe. I was kind of annoyed that the movie sort of glossed over Carol restarting a sun because that's a HUGE thing to do. Thor (temporarily) did the same thing in Infinity War, and it was rightly treated as a feat of strength, but the movie barely focuses on Carol (permanently) doing the same thing. It's like, "Oh, by the way, Carol restarted the sun. Moving on."

Yeah, the villain is BORING. I really don't know why they went with Dar-Benn, but I guess the problem is that Carol doesn't have many notable villains, and the ones she does have are related to the X-Men, like Rogue, Mystique, and Deathbird, so the MCU couldn't use them. Or they already used what villains she does have in the first movie, like Ronan the Accuser, Yon-Rogg, and the Supreme Intelligence. But I still think they could've used the Brood, Nitro, or Moonstone rather than Dar-Benn. Or even adapted a version of the Kree-Skrull War since I don't think the MCU is going to do it. And if they wanted to use the Quantum Bands (which are basically the Nega-Bands from the comics), they could've made Genis-Vell the villain (who would've turned good) since he's Mar-Vell's son and wields the Nega-Bands in the comics. Basically, there are many more interesting villains they could've chosen than Dar-Benn, or they should've written her better.

The logic of the film does not make sense to me at all; I just took it at face value. I still don't understand Kamala's origin or her abilities, and I've watched Ms Marvel. I think they've overly complicated her origin, and I still don't know what her mutant power is.

[gothicprep]

so glad that AI video is here! sort of. kind of. you ever want to see a screensaver that looks like it was designed for windows 2000, where fish are flying through the air across village streets? sora can do that with one easy prompt! you ever wanna see a woman lying in bed, roll over, and watch her arm turn into the comforter? sora can do that too! it's amazing! do you ever want to see a POV of an ant's tunnel that looks like something worse than what you'd see on bbc's planet earth? sora can do that too!

i'm sure we've all seen these videos and many more at this point. the ai evangelists swear that this is a game-changing revolution in its ability to turn simple prompts into movie quality video. assuming that movie quality means a late-stage mcu movie, or madame web, or a direct to video dreamworks knockoff from the early 2000s. really? none of those things. it's not as good as any of those things. and yeah, yeah, i know, "it's going to improve", "this is the worst it's ever gonna look", "it's gonna get more realistic". but there are some who will tell you that this is the beginning of a brave new world. a whole new era! we've got a whole movement that's going to unlock creativity that's been untapped, trapped within people who have no actual talent but, um, some ideas i guess. there's a deep reservoir of those people who society has been wasting for all these years.

let's be real here. more likely, the AI is probably going to be used to much more boring ends than new great works of art when it's not being used for more nefarious ends. on the more boring side of things, you'll have people on the internet say "what if you had batman fight the straw hat pirates from one piece? that's something an ai could do!" fanfic kind of stuff. "what if goku fought superman? who would win? i'll bet ai can show us that!" another thing it can bring to life? sex tapes that you didn't make, but you're going to be starring in! get ready for the future where someone gets mad at you online, and five seconds later, you're in a bondage orgy! have fun at the bondage orgy! that's what ai promises :)

but that's not the worst of it, believe it or not. the real problem with ai is that it's going to give bad actors the ability to create international crises by ginning up phony videos. want to spark a riot in the urban center of a country you don't like? fake a video of a cop killing a kid. it'll go viral and the gas stations will be burning before the city can prove it didn't happen.

wife & i were watching the second season of tokyo vice last night while we were waiting for true detective: night country to come on, and in the premiere episode, there's a video of a sex worker being beaten to death while a gov't minister looks on. when presented with the video, he pulls the shaggy defense and just says "it wasn't me". the denial doesn't wash because the technology at the time couldn't have faked it, but in short order, we're going to be in a future where we won't be able to prove it was or wasn't him. "oh, it was ai". welp. no one will know.

the ability to circulate low-quality, unverified information has real downsides. and if anything, the decades during which i've grown up with the internet prompts me towards a lot more wariness of ai than unbridled enthusiasm. if the best case scenario for ai is what the internet did to the information environment already, we're all fucked. the speed with which things can spread and proliferate is frankly terrifying. the prompts people are using now are dumb, and the programming is not very good, but the ai evangelists are right when they say it's going to get better. and as it gets better, it's going to be more tempting to use it in ways which absolutely are negative for society. i'm sure there are cgi artists working at major studios who will be able to use these things in good ways, but i sit here and i hear people talk about "oh, the great wave of creativity is going to be unleashed by ai!" and i'm just like. what kind of future are you living in, where the technology always works out the way you want, and everyone is happy, and there are flying cars in the sky and rainbows?

[dicapiito]

The Marvels is a great movie. How I rate it? 4.5/5 stars.

A team of three. Teyonah Harris as Monica Rambeau is awesome and with no Wanda in sight; she definitely gets to shine here. And add that Nia DeCosta knows how to hire people to know how to highlight and lowlight all skintones; it’s nice that her powers and her look so awesome. I definitely hope she has her own movie in the future with the same film crew. No more of the Christopher Nolan/ standard boring MCU lighting.

Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan is fun because she oozes excitement of wanting to be Ms Marvel. Ms Marvel also has a great family cast and feels fresh and fun as well. I see why Ms Marvel has a TV series. Add that it seems like she’s in actual costumes that look like a fan made it is also pretty cool. Great job

Brie Larson being Captain Marvel is a great choice and glad to see her without all those other Avengers. Plus her costume looks even better than the first movie.

As for the villains, Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn is top notch. Very fun and it wasn’t that complicated to be caught up with The Marvels without seeing the Ms Marvel show.

If anything, I think The Marvels is a movie that would make new fans of Monica and Kamala and want to learn more about them and check out the comics , which a Marvel movie hasn’t really done in a long time, since the first Black Panther movie.

I hate that this movie even worse treatment than Birds of Prey because how dare women lead movies, and how dare two of them be WoC! Plus this movie has great lighting; actual costumes, it feels like the crew members were fans and even the CGI looks like they were happy to be there. It feels like pre Disney Marvel and I like it

Highly recommend!

[ghostbrawl]

actually to branch out into my own post frankly i don't see the current hollywood slogfest of mcu/sequel/brand/cgi remake to be like "the death of art" or anything. i don't think that's how it goes and frankly hollywood has always had a bad rep in terms of film art. i think people of like, fuck, idk, the 30s, could make a similar argument about hollywood vis a vis no original ideas. art doesn't just die when you stop spitting money at it. lol. good and bad movies are coming out every day and they're at film festivals and indie theatres and shit. and vimeo and indiegogo and geocities. i think after a certain point it's better to cease to be concerned with what is topping the box office than to hang "art" on it and be disappointed when it sells like an office and not a gallery................ not to mention the debate of whether hollywood corpo pieces can be considered "art" at all continues to rage on. does it even matter. can we all get a good 10 hours of sleep and then wake up and watch that transgender batman parody or something. even if its bad it should stop the feeling