IRON MAN!!!!

[TheLuckyOne]

May 20, 2008 11:35:52 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

What I'm all too aware of, though, is that this is one more of a series of superhero movies that follows the formula to the point of predictability. Hero begins his tale rather inwardly focussed and self absorbed. Hero learns a key lesson about life through the death of a mentor/family member. Hero develops pwer set and/or alter ego. Hero clumsily bursts onto the crimefighting scene, has his ass kicked, and finally wins a battle against a hastily thrown in supervillain. Hero vogues, usually against a cityscape or the moon. Preferably both.

Now, did I just describe Spider Man, Batman Begins, or Iron Man?

Star Wars.

Seriously, I get where you're coming from, Poolie, and you're not wrong. At the same time, I don't think it's limited to superhero movies. With minor adjustments, you just described every coming-of-age fantasy or sci-fi story ever. There are just certain archetypes and dramatic events that speak to us all, and will continue to turn up in stories no matter what.

However, you're also right that once the origins have been dispensed with, the sequels can break the mold and get a lot more creative. Sometimes that's really great (Empire Strikes Back, X-Men 2), sometimes... not so much (The Matrix Reloaded).

May 20, 2008 11:35:52 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

ETA: SAMMY L JACKSON! How has nobody commented on this?

I think blinkfan did...

Still, yeah, pretty awesome. Lady Luck was not pleased that we stayed through 10 minutes of credits for that brief scene, but the fanboy in me loved it. Sam Jackson will make a great Nick Fury, you can see why they based the Ultimate version on his likeness.

Just so long as they don't try changing the "regular" Marvel Universe Nick Fury to look like that too. Because that would be... well, kind of racist.

-D

[PoolMan]

Point taken, Drew, and you're right. It's many genres I'm describing. But with the superhero mould, an origin story is a must on a new franchise, and they're starting to feel very much the same. And because those origin stories are so important, they take up a huge part of the movie, so shoehorning in an enemy at the end (unless the enemy is intrinsically part of the hero's creation) always feels so silly to me.

(SPOILERS)

Iron Man is probably the worst offender on this front. The oversized armour that Obidiah wears during his combat with Tony is not only ridiculously overpowered, it's untested. I mean, it took Tony, who the movie has carefully illustrated as a genius engineer and procedural whiz kid, at least 32 test flights NOT to fly into a wall using a machine he built with his own two hands. The older Obidiah steps into the Big Armour for the first time and proceeds to nearly hand Tony's ass to him on a silver platter? Shouldn't Obie be on his back trying to figure out how to make the built-in toilet stop flushing?

And yet I really, really liked this movie. It was fun. I laughed. I cheered! I actually cheered! That hasn't happened since Spider Man 1, and that feels like ages ago. What it got right, it got really right. It's just that these movies are feeling awful similar to me, and it doesn't help that we get like 4 of them a year.

I think the upcoming Dark Knight will be one of the good sequels. Now that the new Bats origin is out of the way, I think the direction the series will take from here should be great. Certainly looks promising, anyway.

And my apologies to Blink if I overlooked his post. Sorry man!

[Rett Mikhal]

May 21, 2008 13:53:53 GMT -5 PoolMan said:

Iron Man is probably the worst offender on this front. The oversized armour that Obidiah wears during his combat with Tony is not only ridiculously overpowered, it's untested. I mean, it took Tony, who the movie has carefully illustrated as a genius engineer and procedural whiz kid, at least 32 test flights NOT to fly into a wall using a machine he built with his own two hands. The older Obidiah steps into the Big Armour for the first time and proceeds to nearly hand Tony's ass to him on a silver platter? Shouldn't Obie be on his back trying to figure out how to make the built-in toilet stop flushing?

Obidiah mentions he puts all the best engineers on reverse-engineering the original suit. Plus, they're in a weapons lab. Tony Stark is a genius and all but he's one guy and only one guy. A team of engineers could very well be 10,000+ engineers (after all, all other weapon development was canceled by Tony) working around the clock. All of Obidiah's weapons seem standard fair, as well. Simple vulcan minigun tacked onto the right arm and such. I'll give it to you that Obidiah took to the suit a little too well, especially since he says himself he normally doesn't have a taste for combat. Then again he really just flies UP, and smacks Tony around like a big gorilla.

Also, I've said for years there are too many origin story superhero movies. It all comes down to alienating the least amount of people possible. Fanboys are willing to see the same crap over and over as long as it's on the big screen, and normies will know what the hell is going on. Ironically, the 'first' comic book movie, X-men, didn't follow this. It only told some of the X-men's origins in bits and pieces and basically summed up the whole reason for them having powers by some of the most terse and thus best opening narrative in a movie.

"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."

That's all you need. I still hold X-men and X2 as the two best comic book movies. While Spider-man was good, it still sacrificed a little bit too much drama for being slightly over-the-top, such as Goblin's ridiculous mask (and the fact he talks but barely moves when he does). Spider-man is still third.

Finally, going back to the original generation of Comic Book movies in the late 80s/early 90s, Batman was not an origin story and it worked marvelously well. In the beginning. There was Batman. And it was good.

[PoolMan]

Well, while I agree with your non-origin examples (X-Men and 1989 Batman), I think I'm still pretty safe in having described a fair majority of the modern wave of comic book movies.

What I'm really pushing is that even though I quite loved Iron Man, the formula was laid so bare that it grated on me even while I was enjoying it.

Incidentally, I'm all for the origin stories. I like them. Quite a bit. But what I'm finding is that the further the movie maker gets from that story, typically the less we enjoy what they produce (see Spidey 1 through 3).

As for X-Men, they couldn't do origins for the whole team, so they did one for Wolverine. It just took three movies to get really deep into.

[Rett Mikhal]

Now, it's fixed.

Watch yourself.