[Setting Riff] Genetic Supermen

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 12, 2020 7:25 pm

Can I just say I super appreciated Vulture's origin story in Homecoming? He was in possession of high tech equipment and weapon salvage and got screwed royally by his government and supers. It was felt crisply plausible in the setting, and vulture is a scavenger.

I'd never cared for Vulture in comics and until today didn't even know that his stupid looking green wingsuit not only was supposed to implausibly allow him to fly, but it also gave him super strength as an unintended feature and also possibly increased his lifespan (I just assumed all 3 things were weird genetic mutations).

So yeah, as setting phlebotinum goes, having a bunch of newly discovered alien tech is pretty sweet for getting past suspension of disbelief and justifying about anything.

Stupid:

Cool:

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sun Jan 12, 2020 7:49 pm

Perhaps we should learn to just stop doubting whether Michael Keaton can pull off a role in a superhero movie.

Keaton for Superman.

JigokuBosatsu · Post by **JigokuBosatsu** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:29 am

True, I'm glad some of us are old enough to remember being skeptical about Mr. Mom playing Batman.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:02 am

deaddmwalking wrote:Keaton for Superman.

I would have rather had him than Eisenberg for Luthor, and I don't even really mean that as some shot at Eisenberg. At this point in his career I could imagine him getting away with lines from either Clancy Brown Luthor or Hackman Luthor and I can't really ask for more than that. Well, other than the hairline, but he's got that covered too. The only thing I can't decide on is if I'd rather have Keaton Lex be doing TEDtalks or Elon Musk style bullshit publicity stunts.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 6:34 am

After Beetlejuice, I thought they were going to have Keaton play The Joker, and actually that still might have been better.

In any case, while Keaton's Vulture is far and away the best part of the movie, Homecoming isn't a great advertisement for shared origins. Shocker is also in that movie and shares Vulture's origin story. And I had to google that shit to be sure, because Shocker in that movie falls flat on every level it's possible for a comic book movie villain to fall flat.

The main problem with the movie overall is that we are at no time asked to sympathize with the protagonist, which is a pretty weird problem for a major Hollywood movie to have. The move's central conflict is for Peter to get over his own hubris and realize that he is not ready for the big time. But as the audience we are never presented with any other point of view. He doesn't succeed at any point in the movie, so every time Tony says "You're in over your head and people could get hurt" the audience agrees with Tony.

For fuck's sake, this kind of thing isn't hard. You just show close following of the hero vanquishing a villain to present the hero's POV and then you pan out to property damage or injured bystanders to show the POV of the adults in the room. Make some fucking tension about your movie's central conflict. By just having the main character lose the baddies over and over again while stuff gets broken and people get hurt, there's no investment by the audience in the main character's POV.

But of course, none of that has to do with the grittiness or power level of the movie. It's a more basic storytelling problem that make parts of the movie that don't have Vulture in it kind of a slog.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:11 am

Peter not being a smarmy piece of shit was a plus and made up for any lack of big tensions for me

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:14 am

You have a core "new science" that the magic is based around and DNA interacts with

Like...

Death Stranding's DOOM's revolves around the extinction event that's warped America

Mass Effect has the mass changing effect to explain qigong powers

Dorohedoro has "smoke" as the medium created in certain people's bodies that are the agents of various magical powers

Various Hindu and Kungfu epics have cultivation of karma, ki and so on to explain powers

Real world Soviet & US psychic research just saw psychic powers as brain wave magic to learn

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 11:45 am

OgreBattle wrote:Peter not being a smarmy piece of shit was a plus and made up for any lack of big tensions for me

After the absolute trainwreck of the Garfield movies, having a Spiderman that's just OK was a big improvement. And I think that Homecoming got a lot of good will just because it wasn't Amazing Spiderman 3. But that doesn't make it an actually good movie, it's still just mediocre.

But compare to audience investment in the heroic arc of Morales in Into The Spiderverse, a Spiderman movie that is actually good. Now some of this is that Into The Spiderverse is self contained and has a complete heroic arc, while Homecoming is a crass attempt to establish a franchise of movies and is deliberately incomplete as a story. But even with that in mind, the movie takes care to present its points in a manner that provokes agreement rom the audience. The point that Miles is in over his head is clear to the character and to us. The point that he'd better hero up fast is also made clear to the character and to the audience. The fact that Prowler is cool and someone we can sympathize with is made clear to the protagonist and to the audience. When we find out Prowler's secret, it is viscerally painful to the protagonist and the audience can sympathize with that.

Compare the demasking of Vulture and the demasking of Prowler, two similar scenes that are among the most effective in their respective movies. It's much more effective in Into the Spiderverse because as an audience we've seen the human side of Prowler's human identity and the villainous side of Prowler's villain identity. In Homecoming, we get a little of that with his small business losing its government contracts, but we don't see him interacting with his family at all until after the unmasking.

-Username17

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 11:58 am

FrankTrollman wrote:After the absolute trainwreck of the Garfield movies

Not seeing the reason for the hatred for those films, myself. Sure, they weren't by any means good, but for generic superhero stuff as an excuse for throwing CGI at the screen they seemed alright.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Mon Jan 13, 2020 4:16 pm

Oh, goddammit, I really confused for a little bit and wondered what the orange cat had to do with Spiderman.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 5:02 pm

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:Oh, goddammit, I really confused for a little bit and wondered what the orange cat had to do with Spiderman.

*nods* I was like. “Wasn’t that Bill Murray? Was he in Spider-Man?!”

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:14 pm

Shocker falls flat everywhere.
He is just not an interesting villain.
The fucking RHINO is more interesting!

Also, the vulture had ONE GOOD STORY in the comics and that was it <.<

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Jan 13, 2020 10:44 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Shocker falls flat everywhere.
He is just not an interesting villain.
The fucking RHINO is more interesting!

Also, the vulture had ONE GOOD STORY in the comics and that was it <.<

You're confusing Shocker with Electro. Electro is the villain who becomes living electricity. Shocker is the villain with vibration gauntlets.
Don't mock the Shocker.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Jan 14, 2020 12:33 am

hyzmarca wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Shocker falls flat everywhere.
He is just not an interesting villain.
The fucking RHINO is more interesting!

Also, the vulture had ONE GOOD STORY in the comics and that was it <.<
You're confusing Shocker with Electro. Electro is the villain who becomes living electricity. Shocker is the villain with vibration gauntlets.
Don't mock the Shocker.

*holds up pinkie, middle finger and index finger*
up yours shocker-fan!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jan 14, 2020 10:33 am

Bill Murray was promoting a Garfield sequel in Zombieland: Double Tap, and one of the main characters (whose real name is never divulged) in Zombieland is played by Emma Stone who also plays Gwen Stacy in the Amazing Spiderman movies where Spiderman is played by Andrew Garfield. Therefore, the Garfield the Cat movies and the Garfield Spiderman movies are in the same continuity. Or as Bill Murray said while promoting Garfield in Zombieland: Doubletap: 'Drugs cost money.'

Anyway, the Andrew Garfield Spiderman movies are an interesting case in bad movies. Because let's be honest: the cast is good. Emma Stone is a good Gwen Stacy. Dennis Leary is a good Captain Stacy. The special effects are also fine for the day. The web swinging looks better than it did in the Toby Maguire movies. The movies are really bad, but not for lack of being composed of good elements. Heck, Andrew Garfield is a genuinely good actor and would have been able to be a perfectly fine Peter Parker - provided he had a script that actually had anything for him to say or do as Peter Parker.

Much of it has to do with the movie being a collection of franchise checklist items rather than a story as such. Every part of the story and world building is simply SONY pissing in the corner to make a movie that is different enough from Sam Raimi's offerings to be 'new' while still being Spiderman enough that the rights don't revert to Marvel. Oscorp is the villain but there's no Green Goblin because that's what they used in the previous version. There's web sprayers instead of biowebs because previous version. Love interest is Gwen Stacy instead of Mary Jane because previous version. There's no artistic decisions, and because of it the movie is artless.

-Username17

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Tue Jan 14, 2020 11:36 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Oscorp is the villain but there's no Green Goblin because that's what they used in the previous version.

Errr...not up to date on my Spidey-lore (at all), in what sense is Amazing Spiderman 2's Green Goblin not the Green Goblin?

Anyway, I'm hardly a big fan of Spiderman, or Marvel films (excepting X-Men), and remain convinced that the greatest superhero is Batman, as played by Adam West, so I might not exactly be the target audience.

In retrospect, the parts I most liked about the film where the the two main leads being charming at each other, so maybe it works better if viewed as a teen romantic comedy with more superheroes in it than usual.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jan 14, 2020 3:18 pm

Thaluikhain wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Oscorp is the villain but there's no Green Goblin because that's what they used in the previous version.
Errr...not up to date on my Spidey-lore (at all), in what sense is Amazing Spiderman 2's Green Goblin not the Green Goblin?

Anyway, I'm hardly a big fan of Spiderman, or Marvel films (excepting X-Men), and remain convinced that the greatest superhero is Batman, as played by Adam West, so I might not exactly be the target audience.

In retrospect, the parts I most liked about the film where the the two main leads being charming at each other, so maybe it works better if viewed as a teen romantic comedy with more superheroes in it than usual.

That last paragraph was specifically about Amazing Spiderman the actual movie rather than about both of the movies. Although the core complaint doesn't change a lot. Why is Electro or Rhino even in Amazing Spiderman 2? Simply because of franchising options. They were trying to ramp up to the Sinister 6 and those kinds of corporate decisions completely overshadowed anything at all about story or theme.

Basically, the Amazing Spiderman movies are exactly the soulless committee driven franchise bricks that snobs accuse the Disney MCU movies of being. If the least generous critics of Thor 2: the Dark World were 100% right about a movie, that movie would be The Amazing Spiderman 2.

-Username17