Alright, bit of a rant coming here. I’m sure I’m going to piss some of you off with this one.
I can enjoy a bad movie like anyone else. As a matter of fact, some bad movies are fantastic. Has anyone seen Vision Quest? If you haven’t, give it a watch. It is so cheesy it’s great. The main villain is supposed to be in high school but looks like he’s about 34. And that’s just a start.
That being said, I am also not a film connoisseur. Usually, movies that win all the awards, and are critically acclaimed don’t interest me at all. For example, I have never seen The King’s Speech and I never will. It looks painfully boring. In fact, film snobs bother me quite a bit. If a movie is entertaining, who cares if it was directed by some Martin Scorsese, or how the cinematography was. Who even cares what cinematography is anyways.
But, this casual movie-goer has had enough with an ever present phenomenon in the film industry in recent years.
I get that comic books are cool. I loved superheroes when I was 9. Back in high school, a good superhero movie was pretty cool. The original Spider Man series with Toby Maguire was pretty awesome. The older movies and TV shows were pretty cool too. But, things have gotten out of hand.
It seems that every 6 months, Marvel is announcing that they have planned out the next 17 years of movies to be released. Couple that with the past decade of Marvel movies that have flooded our theaters, and it is just a lot to deal with. It isn’t good when I can look at a calendar and see that there will be another Guardians of the Galaxy in July of 2036. Long term planning is one thing, but when it is almost guaranteed that one star of your film will be pushing up daisies before your plan is over, then you’ve got to rethink things. Check back with me in 15 years and you can buy me a beer when this is proven right.
I understand that some of these superhero movies have been good. The first Iron Man was great. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies were fantastic. Black Panther is still a tremendous motion picture. I even liked the first Guardians of the Galaxy. But there are far more misses than hits. The market has been diluted by these films.
Nowadays, the movie industry is strongly based on nostalgia. What is a key part of nostalgia? When something goes away for a while and comes back. If these superhero movies don’t stop coming out, they’ll never be able to capitalize on the nostalgia factor.
This rant was inspired by the great podcast Quantum Week. It is a fantastic podcast and I suggest all of you listen to it. They do a great job with movies, music and pop culture from random weeks during their lifetime. Here is their patreon link, I suggest you subscribe: https://www.patreon.com/Quantum_Week On the podcast, Chris claims that the Marvel movies are destroying the industry. Not sure that’s the case, but he is a film connoisseur, so he would know better than this blind guy.
Now, I know what y’all are going to say. “Marvel is making millions and millions of dollars with these movies!” Yes they are. And throw Disney’s ability to seemingly print money and you’ve got a cash factory here. This is at the expense of the typical movie-goer.
Eventually, we are all going to get sick of these movies and stop going to see them. Now that could happen in 2 months, or 54 years. There’s no way to predict it. But it is going to end sometime. And the film and TV industry have a habit of beating a dead horse.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to be boycotting superhero movies. I’m just sick of the over-population and mindless promotion of the movies.
Just remember, when Avengers 17 flops in theaters and the studios start losing money, I told you so.
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