that’s not what i meant by “real”. of course they’re unrealistic, that’s the point. i was more pointing to the fact that the characters and the world do not mesh, they don’t feel like they fit into the world around them. like, spiderman movies are all super textured due to peter and miles being well-integrated into the world, but the avengers films just feel like theme park rides.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification. “Theme park rides” is a good description.
I’m interested to see how James Gunn handles Superman. One of the points is supposed to be that Superman isn’t the world’s first superhero. Others have been around for at least a few years; hopefully more. I wonder how that will affect the “feel” of the integration! You’ve given me something else to look for!
i’m almost convinced that it’s impossible to make interesting stories with superman as the main character, just because the entire crux of the character is that he can’t integrate. he’s like dr. manhattan, or godzilla, or unicron; just too powerful to work as a protagonist, but very interesting to write a world around.
uncritically building a superman story will always necessarily have to hand-wave some random reason for why he can’t just vaporise the antagonist on the spot, and it’s always the same hand-wave.
like, the iron giant is not about the iron giant. that’s why it’s good.
Yeah. Comic book movies are fun because they’re unrealistic, but being unrealistic opens them up to other problems.
that’s not what i meant by “real”. of course they’re unrealistic, that’s the point. i was more pointing to the fact that the characters and the world do not mesh, they don’t feel like they fit into the world around them. like, spiderman movies are all super textured due to peter and miles being well-integrated into the world, but the avengers films just feel like theme park rides.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification. “Theme park rides” is a good description.
I’m interested to see how James Gunn handles Superman. One of the points is supposed to be that Superman isn’t the world’s first superhero. Others have been around for at least a few years; hopefully more. I wonder how that will affect the “feel” of the integration! You’ve given me something else to look for!
i’m almost convinced that it’s impossible to make interesting stories with superman as the main character, just because the entire crux of the character is that he can’t integrate. he’s like dr. manhattan, or godzilla, or unicron; just too powerful to work as a protagonist, but very interesting to write a world around.
uncritically building a superman story will always necessarily have to hand-wave some random reason for why he can’t just vaporise the antagonist on the spot, and it’s always the same hand-wave.
like, the iron giant is not about the iron giant. that’s why it’s good.
The Iron Giant is a great example - both because of the comparison, and because I love that film!