You have perfectctly described what I have been trying to grasp for years. I’ve found myself liking less and less so many movies from the last ~20 years, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what specifically the reason was. I knew I didn’t like the writing, and especially didn’t like the humor (in particular how forced it felt), but I couldn’t determine quite why.
What I did know is that it felt like writers saw their audiences as big dumb idiots who can’t detect any nuance in writing, and need everything spelled out for them. It made many movies unwatchably unenjoyable, to the point that I have only seen… I think 5 of the MCU movies (a few of the early ones, a fee of the more recent ones).
Sometimes with media studies it’s better not to know cause it can ruin your enjoyment and make you overly critical, I’ve just accepted to enjoy trash for what it is and not judge people for liking it cause everyone has some trash they enjoy. It’s fun to understand why trash is trash though and make fun of it in a non-elitist way.
But yeah the quick quippy self-referencing dialogue I really don’t enjoy and it’s what’s permeated a lot of stuff in recent years, I much preferred the over-the-top 90s style with a lot of physical stage acting to back it up. Characters just standing there trying to out-quip each other just isn’t enjoyable for me. A lot of the MCU characters are written as narcissists as well, that’s not necessarily bad cause there’s amazing narcissist characters, but it’s not really in line with their roles in the stories. This might be going a bit too far but there’s also some fascist themes in the MCU, but that critique has to get in to a lot more than just MCU. Toure Reed has some interesting writing on that.
I haven’t seen any of the Marvel stuff since Endgame, except for perhaps the deadpool movies. It went from fun, cheesy, and lighthearted to just depressing.
And the blatant product placement really got on my nerves as well. Fucking Audi.
Oh man, and BMW. They devoted a whole scene in the second Avengers movie to Black Widow riding one through the streets so she could contribute to the fight by grabbing Captain America’s shield.
It was portrayed as so epic, too. The way Hawkeye said “Give 'em hell!” You’d think she was about to deploy in an iron man suit or something and actually start kicking ass.
Nope, she’s just the maid. Gotta get that bike in the movie somehow!
I haven’t watched a lot of MCU stuff but for a while they were basically a summer blockbuster a group of friends could go see without anyone vetoing it. Guardians was probably my favorite for being wacky and entertaining. When I started to see Pop Figure shrines in people’s offices etc, it was interesting to see how these MCU movies had successfully commodified these things from nerd culture and made them mainstream.
You have perfectctly described what I have been trying to grasp for years. I’ve found myself liking less and less so many movies from the last ~20 years, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what specifically the reason was. I knew I didn’t like the writing, and especially didn’t like the humor (in particular how forced it felt), but I couldn’t determine quite why.
What I did know is that it felt like writers saw their audiences as big dumb idiots who can’t detect any nuance in writing, and need everything spelled out for them. It made many movies unwatchably unenjoyable, to the point that I have only seen… I think 5 of the MCU movies (a few of the early ones, a fee of the more recent ones).
Thank you for helping me to understand.
Sometimes with media studies it’s better not to know cause it can ruin your enjoyment and make you overly critical, I’ve just accepted to enjoy trash for what it is and not judge people for liking it cause everyone has some trash they enjoy. It’s fun to understand why trash is trash though and make fun of it in a non-elitist way.
But yeah the quick quippy self-referencing dialogue I really don’t enjoy and it’s what’s permeated a lot of stuff in recent years, I much preferred the over-the-top 90s style with a lot of physical stage acting to back it up. Characters just standing there trying to out-quip each other just isn’t enjoyable for me. A lot of the MCU characters are written as narcissists as well, that’s not necessarily bad cause there’s amazing narcissist characters, but it’s not really in line with their roles in the stories. This might be going a bit too far but there’s also some fascist themes in the MCU, but that critique has to get in to a lot more than just MCU. Toure Reed has some interesting writing on that.
I haven’t seen any of the Marvel stuff since Endgame, except for perhaps the deadpool movies. It went from fun, cheesy, and lighthearted to just depressing.
And the blatant product placement really got on my nerves as well. Fucking Audi.
Oh man, and BMW. They devoted a whole scene in the second Avengers movie to Black Widow riding one through the streets so she could contribute to the fight by grabbing Captain America’s shield.
It was portrayed as so epic, too. The way Hawkeye said “Give 'em hell!” You’d think she was about to deploy in an iron man suit or something and actually start kicking ass.
Nope, she’s just the maid. Gotta get that bike in the movie somehow!
I haven’t watched a lot of MCU stuff but for a while they were basically a summer blockbuster a group of friends could go see without anyone vetoing it. Guardians was probably my favorite for being wacky and entertaining. When I started to see Pop Figure shrines in people’s offices etc, it was interesting to see how these MCU movies had successfully commodified these things from nerd culture and made them mainstream.