Comment by diminoten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diminoten | Hacker News Reader

Do we benefit from drawing lines between "cinema" and... whatever you might call a Marvel film? What do we call a Marvel film, if not "cinema"?

Further, why isn't anything at risk? Infinity War got about as close to real risk as any MCU film has so far, and I think if Mr. Scorsese watched that film he'd realize it's actually possible to create emotional drama within the context of a "Marvel Movie".

Also, are we really drawing the line arbitrarily at Marvel specifically? Where does "Joker" fit? Watchmen, The Dark Knight, Wonderwoman, 300, Scott Pilgrim, V for Vendetta? What about undeniably "Marvel" films like Logan, and Into the Spiderverse? Do we dismiss all media sourced from the pages of comics, or just the MCU specifically?

I ask both to make a rhetorical point, and because I genuinely don't understand. Mr. Scorsese writes this opinion piece like there's a shared understanding of what a "Marvel movie" is, but I don't know that there is such an understanding.

The gist isn't the line that you are focusing on. Scorsese loves movies that expand the mind and enrich the spirit. Irrespective of where the line is drawn (losing sight of the forest by focusing on a tree), he thinks that the Marvel movies aren't trying and are playing it safe. He says that that is fine but that their massive success is crowding out movies that could potentially expand the mind and enrich the spirit from getting made or being seen. He didn't bring up that they were based on comics (that's a straw man argument).

I’ve seen all of those movies except “Joker” and they’re largely drivel, certainly of lower aesthetic and intellectual value than the films Scorsese cites. And I’m a huge comic book fan and illustrator. These movies are primarily IP cash-ins on work stolen from writers and artists through shady work-for-hire deals and other predatory arrangements.

> shady work-for-hire deals

Is that the kind of deal where you work for an employer and they pay you?

Kind of like the deal most software engineers take.

No... more like you go work for an employer, and they lay claim to all of the existing code you've written on your own.

This reads like it was written by someone who has never had something they've created criticized at any real level...

Edit: Since I'm rate limited, my point is that his is an unexamined dismissal of someone else's creative effort that only comes from never having your own work glibly dismissed out of hand.

Is your point that he shouldn't criticize anything unless he can do better, or that he shouldn't criticize something because it might hurt the feelings of the creator?

I do not think you understood his point. It's not about comics. It could as well be monster flicks or romcoms or what have you. The genre, in fact, the entire content, is irrelevant to his point. It's about the creative process that underlies the making of the movie. Let's make a technical analogy.

There's a profound difference in products made by the vision of a single person or maybe two co-founders, and the kind of products that are design-by-committee in big enterprises. The first kind takes risks, explores new ideas, disrupts the industry. The second kind is usually made to fit a predetermined market niche. It exploits market analysis, and usually leverages some existing tech in order to quickly deliver RoI.

And that's what Marvel movies are. They're soulless, because no soul has written or directed them. Every detail has been polished and considered by several other people. But it's just Marvel, it's all franchise movies. It didn't even start with Marvel. It's just the most successful and most prominent example.

It's bullshit to say that only individuals can makes things "with soul." Why is having multiple people polishing and examining details a weakness?

Marvel did disrupt the industry when the MCU came out. Look at how many cinematic universes have been attempted now. The MCU is the largest and most successful.

This is just pretension, not insight.

The fact that your argument is that Marvel "disrupted the industry" proves Marty's point better than he ever could have.

Marvel is also a worldwide copyright, sensitive to Taiwan, China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel, and all other "hard geopolitical issues".

Pandering to comic book characters, with larger than life evildoers is a slam bet to make money. And the max viewing is what, 8 billion?

Making films for the US is limiting your market to 300m max. The numbers for how much films cost doesn't make sense to not make worldwide distributions.

Sounds like he doesn't like adaptations, then, which doesn't make any sense at all.

The Russo Bros, Favreau, Joss Whedon, James Gunn, Chris Nolan, Stan Lee, Bruce Timm. These aren't committee members, these are the visionaries that make the movies Mr. Scorsese seems to think have no soul, taken no risk.

Besides, he didn't call out franchise movies, he called out Marvel films. Your interpretation doesn't hold water. Adaptations have existed for decades, he doesn't seem to mind them, he even makes them! Do you think he invented "Bill the Butcher"?

It's interesting to wonder if the marvel comics themselves are created as you say, by motivated individuals or by committee. Definitely the origin stories (at least the ones we've been fed) are of one, sometimes two, writers, hatching basically every super hero character we know.

But those origin stories are all in the past (the most recent that's culturally noticed is MacFarlane with Spawn?) I wonder if the current vanguard of marvel comics (or others) are driven by individuals or by committee. I would guess that it's closer to the former, because comic _books_ are still not the enormous business that the movies are, and hence have much fewer people to please.

Hopefully Marvel et al are wise enough to hand the reigns of new, current books over to new, motivated, and individual, writers.

It's individuals today! Scott Snyder had a run with Batman, so did Grant Morrison (both wonderful in their own way), then you've got Tom King, and who could forget Frank Miller or Alan More. You've got Alex Ross with Superman, Gail Simone, Hickman, Bendis, Brian K. Vaughn (The Walking Dead, Saga, Y: The Last Man, anyone?), the ever present Geoff Johns, Neil Gaiman...

To say comics are written by committee is to not know any of the names above, and to not know any of the names above is to not know anything about comics.

> Where does "Joker" fit?

Well, Scorsese considered directing "Joker" (but ultimately didn't) and calls the movie "a remarkable work":

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/martin-scorsese-joker-dir...

Um, much of the stuff you cited is Marvel work. Do your homework.

? Not sure what you mean. Of course they are, that's why I listed them! They're good films that seem to defy the "Marvel movies play it safe" stance Mr. Scorsese is claiming.

Regarding anything "Marvel" - including most of the other movies you mentioned - , utterly irredeemable trash is the word you are looking for.

Here is a very well written critique:

https://jacobitemag.com/2019/05/14/capeshits-endgame/

“Bombastic effects and painfully long fight sequences coupled with jokes anyone of any age can understand; this is the formula studios have spent decades refining. Any modicum of intelligence possessed by the best of the comics, (and there is very, very little) is completely drained in favor of material designed to appeal to literally everyone. These movies take no risks. They are thoroughly vetted, focus-grouped, market-tested. That one could walk away from three hours of such blatant pandering feeling anything other than insulted is indictment enough of our cultural moment.”

As upvotes are erased by downvotes, I'll say thank you for that link.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com