Fuck your cinematic universe

This is a movie I never want to see.

OK, we need to have a talk. A serious talk. Why don’t you sit down over there?

*takes deep breath*

I heard you were doing something you shouldn’t be.

*holds out hand to stop a response*

I know, I know, you were probably just experimenting. And that’s OK. When I was your age, I experimented with stuff, too. You’re young, and you want to explore the world. Maybe you want to experiment with the same sex, or drugs, or a different religion. You know what? That’s OK. That’s how you discover yourself and become the person you are going to be as an adult.

*crosses arms over chest*

But there is one thing you should never experiment with. Something that, if you get involved with, can lead you down a very dark path. You might never come back from it.

*narrows eyes*

I heard from a friend of yours, that you…

*sighs*

…were thinking of starting your own cinematic universe.

Screw You, Marvel

This is exactly what Marvel is doing to their properties.

All of Marvel’s upcoming movies are going to be trash.

A decade ago, movie adaptations of comic books were a joke. With the exception of the 1989 Batman and 1978 Superman films, they were laughable at best, and huge steaming piles of shit at worst. The problem was that nobody took it seriously, not even the creators. They made them campy and hokey, and self-referentially stupid. They were the lowest common denominator of movies. They became a self-fulfilling prophecy of crappy movie-making. After all, if the filmmakers themselves treated the properties like shit, then the movies would inevitably turn out to be shit. The industry chugged along, and churned out turd after turd with the occasional, anomalous decent movie like Blade in 1998.

Fast forward to 2002, and the release of Spider-Man. Suddenly, we had a GOOD live action version of a comic book movie. How did it turn out good, you ask? Well, let me answer that for you. The simple reason was that the director, Sam Raimi, had been a longtime fan of the comic book series. He wanted to stay as true to the character as possible while adapting him for the more difficult live action film environment. Naturally, certain things needed to be changed, but they were done with as much care as possible. The characters and situations were taken seriously, and given the right amount of gravity with occasional moments of levity thrown in to keep things fun. The script was solid, the actors were well cast and talented, and everything flowed together seamlessly. It just worked. Worldwide, that movie grossed over $800 million. People were screaming about how awesome the movie was, and all of a sudden it wasn’t nerdy to like comics any more.