Rumor: Disney Developing New Live-Action Dragon Ball Movie With Asian Cast

[ABED]

I get Scorsese's point, but this isn't fundamentally Disney's fault. Technology is shifting and more and more people are moving away from the cinema as the way they are watching films, except in the case of big budget genre movies, family films, or rom-coms. And from a financial aspect, the cost of distributing and marketing any film adds a considerable cost to getting a movie out there. Distributing through streaming makes more sense economically.

And can people stop using fascism as a synonym for authoritarianism?

[WittyUsername]

On the subject of the Nolan Batman films supposedly “inspiring” other superhero movies to be overly dark and gritty, I don’t see it. I’m not saying that superhero movies being overly dark hasn’t been an issue, but blaming the Nolan Batman films for this trend just comes across as ignorant. As far as the Zack Snyder DC films are concerned, those movies are very much made in the style you’d expect from a Zack Snyder film. Yes, they’re dark and gritty, but not in the same way as The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I don’t understand why so many people seem to get this idea that Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder make similar kinds of movies, when they really don’t. Their styles are actually drastically different. Even the looks of their respective films are different. While Zack Snyder movies have a reputation for having washed out color palettes, Nolan’s movies actually tend to have a pretty noticeable use of colors and contrasts.

I suppose Man of Steel can be somewhat compared to the Nolan Batman films, in that it’s a non-chronological origin story, like Batman Begins, and is titled in a similar manner to TDK. Also, I guess the film’s lack of slow motion might’ve potentially been done in attempt to be more “grounded”, but generally speaking, it feels like a Zack Snyder film.

[ABED]

On the subject of the Nolan Batman films supposedly “inspiring” other superhero movies to be overly dark and gritty, I don’t see it. I’m not saying that superhero movies being overly dark hasn’t been an issue, but blaming the Nolan Batman films for this trend just comes across as ignorant. As far as the Zack Snyder DC films are concerned, those movies are very much made in the style you’d expect from a Zack Snyder film. Yes, they’re dark and gritty, but not in the same way as The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I don’t understand why so many people seem to get this idea that Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder make similar kinds of movies, when they really don’t. Their styles are actually drastically different. Even the looks of their respective films are different. While Zack Snyder movies have a reputation for having washed out color palettes, Nolan’s movies actually tend to have a pretty noticeable use of colors and contrasts.

I suppose Man of Steel can be somewhat compared to the Nolan Batman films, in that it’s a non-chronological origin story, like Batman Begins and is titled in a similar manner to TDK. Also, I guess the film’s lack of slow motion might’ve potentially been done in attempt to be more “grounded”, but generally speaking, it feels like a Zack Snyder film.

Not what I wrote, but Nolan's approach has definitely had an effect on cinema overall. Christ, even trailers started using Inception as a template - an f'ing trailer! Hell I read one article claiming Nolan's success with Batman lead Hollywood to play moneyball and go after indie successes for their tentpole films.

The point isn't they make similar style films, it's that Nolan was successful and imitators came and tried to take what they thought was the reason his approach works. It's surface level superficial similarities and that's my point.

[WittyUsername]

On the subject of the Nolan Batman films supposedly “inspiring” other superhero movies to be overly dark and gritty, I don’t see it. I’m not saying that superhero movies being overly dark hasn’t been an issue, but blaming the Nolan Batman films for this trend just comes across as ignorant. As far as the Zack Snyder DC films are concerned, those movies are very much made in the style you’d expect from a Zack Snyder film. Yes, they’re dark and gritty, but not in the same way as The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I don’t understand why so many people seem to get this idea that Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder make similar kinds of movies, when they really don’t. Their styles are actually drastically different. Even the looks of their respective films are different. While Zack Snyder movies have a reputation for having washed out color palettes, Nolan’s movies actually tend to have a pretty noticeable use of colors and contrasts.

I suppose Man of Steel can be somewhat compared to the Nolan Batman films, in that it’s a non-chronological origin story, like Batman Begins and is titled in a similar manner to TDK. Also, I guess the film’s lack of slow motion might’ve potentially been done in attempt to be more “grounded”, but generally speaking, it feels like a Zack Snyder film.

Not what I wrote, but Nolan's approach has definitely had an effect on cinema overall. Christ, even trailers started using Inception as a template - an f'ing trailer!

The point isn't they make similar style films, it's that Nolan was successful and imitators came and tried to take what they thought was the reason his approach works. It's surface level superficial similarities and that's my point.

I understood what your point was. I’m simply saying that I don’t think Zack Snyder made his DC films dark and gritty because of Christopher Nolan. Snyder was making dark and violent movies before something like TDK came along. Dark and violent stories are very much in his wheelhouse.

Also, I didn’t say that Nolan hasn’t had any influence of the world of cinema. I’m simply echoing what Kunzait said about how his movies are not the reason that dark superhero movies ever became a thing. Movies like Daredevil and Hulk, for example, came out two years before Batman Begins.

[ABED]

Understood, but there's a reason his approach got greenlit. Fans, the conversation surrounding the films, and the studio thought the success came down to superficial elements, hence why they went with Snyder who had surface level similarities. Hell, even though Nolan wasn't a superficial reason for the success of his Batman movies, his approach to the material doesn't work for everything. People, including smart people on the inside of the movie business, often attribute something's success or even failure on the tangible surface level details.

Daredevil and Hulk weren't successful, that's the difference.

Bottom line, the MCU's "formula" works for them, but won't work for Dragon Ball, especially if the takeaway of Marvel's success is the superficial stuff like humor. lightheartedness, continuity, and interconnectivity.

[JulieYBM]

The goofy dialogue and character voices are one of the few things I wish other films had learned from the Nolan trilogy. "Enough! Bring me the Bat!!" With a table slam or the rookie cop trying to stop Batman while his senior partner is replying to him with goofy sarcasm is so much better than the Whedon-isms.

[WittyUsername]

Bottom line, the MCU's "formula" works for them, but won't work for Dragon Ball, especially if the takeaway of Marvel's success is the superficial stuff like humor. lightheartedness, continuity, and interconnectivity.

A lot of things that work for the MCU wouldn’t work for Dragon Ball, yes. For one thing, the style of humor that you see in the MCU often involves pop culture references, including multiple references to things like Star Wars and Back to the Future. Needless to say, that kind of stuff would be pretty out of place in a fantasy world like Dragon Ball. Unfortunately, a lot of the humor that early Dragon Ball had...well, it wouldn’t exactly fly in Hollywood today, especially not if you want the movies to be kid friendly.

Of course, on a more important note, Dragon Ball isn’t really a superhero story, as pretty much everyone in this thread has pointed out by now. That would probably be the biggest hurdle in adapting Dragon Ball into a Hollywood franchise, since it’s so drastically different from the kinds of stories you see in the West. That’s another reason why I doubt that Disney would even bother.

[JulieYBM]

If Disney had merchandising rights I think they'd be more interested in the subject. With Star Wars and Marvel they have complete control and can squeeze millions out of the merchandise alone. Lest they buy Shueisha, that's not going to happen.

Also, fuck Disney.

[ABED]

Bottom line, the MCU's "formula" works for them, but won't work for Dragon Ball, especially if the takeaway of Marvel's success is the superficial stuff like humor. lightheartedness, continuity, and interconnectivity.

A lot of things that work for the MCU wouldn’t work for Dragon Ball, yes. For one thing, the style of humor that you see in the MCU often involves pop culture references, including multiple references to things like Star Wars and Back to the Future. Needless to say, that kind of stuff would be pretty out of place in a fantasy world like Dragon Ball. Unfortunately, a lot of the humor that early Dragon Ball had...well, it wouldn’t exactly fly in Hollywood today, especially not if you want the movies to be kid friendly.

Of course, on a more important note, Dragon Ball isn’t really a superhero story, as pretty much everyone in this thread has pointed out by now. That would probably be the biggest hurdle in adapting Dragon Ball into a Hollywood franchise, since it’s so drastically different from the kinds of stories you see in the West. That’s another reason why I doubt that Disney would even bother.

It would be the biggest hurdle in adapting it well. If they don't understand the genre it belongs in, then the adaptation is fundamentally on the wrong track, even though I could see some company trying to make it simply because DB is a behemoth of a franchise.

Regarding superhero film scores - using John Williams as the measuring stick is the a little ludicrous. He's John F'ing Williams. Anyone is lucky to have one memorable score, but he has numerous classic and instantly recognizable scores. It's not easy to do. That doesn't mean the films don't have good or even great scores, they're just not all time classics. Comparing anything to John Williams is calling for disappointment. Though I maintain The Avengers score from the underrated Alan Sivestri (the guy scored Predator and BACK TO THE FUTURE) is genuinely great.

[Kunzait_83]

Although, I will say for the record that putting a one note dark tone over a movie where people where costumes to beat up bad guys is rather pretentious unless you are pointing out the inherent silliness of it.

If you put a one note tone of ANY KIND (dark, funny, warm, scary, etc) on ANYTHING, its likely going to turn out pretty shit and unwatchable/unreadable. The term "one-note" has for ages and ages been a critic shorthand used to describe crappy, terrible work for a damn good reason: works of a singular lone note most often tend to be inherently and innately boring and one-dimensional and generally not something one should be purposefully aiming for.

Even works that fall fairly squarely into a singular genre (be it horror, action, drama, comedy, etc), the good ones anyway, almost NEVER cordon themselves off to just a singular tone repeated ad nauseam. Robo4900 just now rightly and aptly cited Stephen King and The Shining as examples of works that are staunchly of the horror genre that work on a NUMBER of other tonal levels besides purely and simply "scary".

That's actually, as a lifelong diehard horror nerd, been one of my principal go-to problems with the current spate of "jump-scare haunted house" films that have dominated the genre since Paranormal Activity: they're SO thuddingly singleminded in JUST having the ONE tone of "scary" without understanding in any way that good horror is made when you take NON-scary moments and concepts and CONTRAST THEM against something scary. Most of the best horror works of all time have a whole TON of other tonal elements to them apart from just "scary" (not least of which include, in an overwhelming majority of cases, HUMOR: as the line between "scary" and "funny" is very often a razor thin one).

Art is, invariably, a reflection of life (however warped or cracked said reflection might be): and life itself is in NO WAY just one singular note repeated endlessly (unless you're a DMV, Walmart, or post-office employee ).

I think any ideas of a Dragon Ball movie being a Snyder-esque "dark and gritty" thing are the childish ramblings of an edgelord teenager who doesn't actually know what Dragon Ball is, or indeed what makes a good movie.

Or for that matter, what makes something ACTUALLY "edgy". There's a word who's definition has been over-abused and mangled to within an inch of its life: edgy. The whole "edgy" and "edgelord" meme is unbelievably tiresome and stupid: not least of which because its SO over-applied to SO many things that aren't even actually all that "edgy" in the first place. Including, but in no way limited to, Zack Snyder's superhero films.

"Edgy" ostensibly is supposed to mean something that pushes boundaries, something that challenges people's sensibilities, something that is genuinely off the beaten path of the mainstream. i.e. something that is out there "on the edge" (hence the name). I can think of few things that are LESS emblematic of those attributes than Snyder's DC movies, all of which certainly have PRETENSIONS at being "edgy" as well as a desperate longing to be perceived as such: but they in NO WAY actually hit that mark, or anything close to it.

There's a HUGE, MASSIVE fucking difference between wanting to be edgy and failing badly at it, and actually being edgy. And my problem with recent over-use of the term is that that's a crucial distinction that almost NO ONE seems to be making, and everything from Batman v Superman (an unintentional comedy goldmine) to Devil May Cry (a video game series so over the top silly and goofy, its palpably mind-melting) to Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog (HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Noooooooooooooo...) and everything/anything in between are all lumped in together as "edgy" when they're all absolutely anything but.

There's NOTHING particularly wrong with something that is actually and legitimately edgy, and I'd go so far as to say that such works are often fairly important and crucial overall to have, and in a great many cases even form much of the bedrock of the very best and most worthwhile works that art in general has to offer. By contrast, there are FEW things more grating, annoying, idiotic, cringe-worthy, and decidedly NON-edgy (though also sometimes to be fair, plenty unintentionally hilarious) than something that tries DESPERATELY to be "edgy" and "profound" and falls flat on its face miserably in the process.

William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg were edgy. Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut were edgy. Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman were edgy. The Crow (the original comic and film mind you) is edgy. Clive Barker is edgy. Nirvana and Sonic Youth were edgy. Minor Threat and Rites of Spring were edgy. Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson even were edgy. H.R. Giger was edgy. The films of Shinya Tuskamoto and Alejandro Jodorowsky are edgy. Hell, the original Terminator, Alien, and Robocop films are all edgy. Even Stephen King, at his very best, can be considered fairly edgy at times. Comedians like Bill Hicks and George Carlin were the patron saints of edgy.

95% of the dumbfuck bullshit that the internet of today throws the word "edgy" at with abandon (a random video game or kids' cartoon character that happens to wear all black, or whatever the fuck) are things that are almost diametrically opposed to the very definition of the word edgy. The whole meme culture surrounding the idea of an "edgelord" is 100% beyond fucking dumb and asinine in and of itself, and basically is just the 2010s equivalent of what the term "emo kid" was in the 2000s. Its meaningless internet nonsense that basically just means either "idiot douchebag preteen trying and failing to be profound and mature" or "anything that I happen to not like and think is beneath me".

Zack Snyder's DC films are about as worthy of the label "edgy" as the artwork on the back of a fucking Yu Gi Oh playing card: which is to say "not at all" and if THAT'S your go-to main definition of what "edgy" is... then please, PLEASE by all means, do get out more.

They're not challenging movies generally, sure. There's a reason Scorsese isn't interested in seeing these movies, and much as I consider his remarks regarding them being "Not cinema" to be childish, reductionist nonsense, the underlying point that they're not... For lack of a better term, challenging auteur stuff like Apocalypse Now or The Shining or whatever, is valid.

...

And while it wouldn't be some Scorsese-approved meditation on what it means to be human, I think it'd still be a fun movie we could all share in the joy of.

Having actually read what Scorsese actually said about this in full detail and in its entire context (rather than just skimming the headline on a movie website somewhere and getting into a frothing fanboy rage over it: not accusing you of that necessarily, but that seems to be largely what most folks online seem to have done), I gotta say that this is honestly kind of a VAST misreading of what he was trying to get at (i.e. that films can ONLY be high-minded, high art meditations and waxing on profound topics in order to be "real films").

Certainly for my own part here, I'm under absolutely NO illusions that a Dragon Ball movie (or Dragon Ball anything really) should be anything other than a fun and vivid fantasy kung fu film first and foremost above all else. It seems to be a common misreading of most of my posts on these subjects (be it due to the wordiness, the verbiage used, and the fact that I often go on about a foreign genre that almost no one here knows anything about or has any familiarity with) that I'm often trying to posit Dragon Ball as being something fundamentally more "intellectual" and "high brow" than it in any way actually is, and that I'm trying to elevate what is fundamentally just a silly children's kung fu fantasy story into something way more cerebral and arty than it actually is or ever was.

I'm going to try and make this as abundantly clear as I possibly can here (and not for the first time either at this point): NOTHING that I've EVER argued about ANY of Dragon Ball's genre roots or lineage on here has EVER meant that I see it as something that is worthy of scholarly academic examination or requiring that a new film be some marvelously dense meditation and statement on the nature of blah blah blah or what have you. Not then, not now, and not ever.

I go into the level of detail that I do because, point blank, this community is (and has been for quite some long many years now) VASTLY ignorant of most of the details and history behind a lot of this stuff (hewing largely, once again, to Shonen and other children's properties when discussing the broader artistic context surrounding Dragon Ball's creation), so the excess amount of nuance is kind of essential, otherwise I'll just be throwing around words, jargon, and shorthand for concepts that almost no one here will have the slightest clue as to what the hell I'm talking about.

Furthermore, my issue with a potential Disney-helmed Dragon Ball film is certainly NOT a lack of intellectual depth or cerebral weight. Its Dragon Ball: its the story of a super strong alien Kung Fu monkey man training for his whole life to punch other demon & alien Kung Fu men in the face real good & real hard. The Grapes of Wrath this is obviously and most certainly not.

Rather, my problem is that of execution, tone, and creative identity and artistic fingerprints. Even though Dragon Ball is just a dumb, wacky, and nonsensical kung fu fairytale about one lunkheaded Kung Fu alien monkey hillbilly's quest to punch & kick faster and harder than any of the zany kung fu monsters & spacemen that he comes across, its one that was and has always been executed with a TREMENDOUS degree of idiosyncrasies that are born of both A) its author and B) its culture, timeframe, and genre roots.

Simply put, I don't WANT it to feel like just a generic, cookie-cutter superhero blockbuster on the order of The Avengers that you could cut and paste virtually ANY other generic nerd franchise into. I want it to feel like exactly what it is and always has been: a goddamn batshit insane, over the top silly and ridiculous, coked-out, high-flying, million-miles-an-hour, high concept, high fantasy Wuxia Kung Fu fest.

At best, give me something as bugfuck turbo-charged deranged, high energy, and high octane as what someone like Tsui Hark or Wong Jing would've turned out in the late 80s and early 90s (which was HARDLY anything vaguely resembling brain food to be sure, as those are names and films that any NUMBER of genuine Wuxia snobs, purists, & elitists would hurl up their collective lunch at the merest mention of): and at worst I'll even settle for, once again, the white kid-free version of Forbidden Kingdom with Goku and co. swapped in for Jackie Chan & Jet Li. i.e. Something that's the barest, bottom-most rung of a mildly & passably entertaining afternoon with something that is at least somewhat vaguely recognizably by and of the kung fu fantasy genre that I both love and got into DB expressly because of.

In Wuxia terms, what I'd be asking for here is NOT IN ANY WHICH WAY a particularly high or ambitious bar to clear by even the FAINTEST fucking stretch. I am in NO WAY asking for this to be the Dragon Ball rendition of something like The Legend of the Black Scorpion, A Touch of Zen, or Ashes of Time (i.e. genuinely arthouse, higher than high brow, film scholar-caliber Wuxia movies that would sweep the "Best Foreign Film" Oscars). I'm thinking as far, far, FAAAAAAAAAAAR from that as you conceivably could on EITHER of my "absolute best ideal" and "absolute barest minimum" levels of extremes here.

Dragon Ball is, at the end of the day, stupid chop socky fantasy bullshit. All I ask is that it simply be stupid, chop socky fantasy bullshit that ISN'T FUCKING BORING nor as samey, indistinct, and cookie-cutter generic (and indeed isn't martial arts-themed in the least) as every other fucking monotonously dull nerd-wanking bullshit that gets cranked out of Hollywood in general. Just give me a goofy, manically energetic Shaw Bros.-style wuxia feature updated for the modern CGI era and featuring our beloved DB cast, and I'm 1000% all good and in the tank for that. Give me "Infinity War" with martial arts dogi's in place of Avengers uniforms though, and you can plainly fuck right off.

And lastly, as far as Scorsese goes: what he was talking about is part of a MUCH broader-reaching and long-standing problem with Hollywood studio filmmaking, both on the creative end as well as on the business end. On the creative end, he's complaining (as a LOT of other Hollywood filmmakers and producers have been complaining about this for YEARS and years now behind the scenes, but typically tend to keep it more on the downlow and out of public interviews for PR reasons) about the - stop me when this sounds familiar - over focus and over-indulgence in children's films & media at the expense of movies and stories that are for and about adults and adult issues. This of course, is mostly thanks to studio economics surrounding ballooning budgets and psychotically hyper-skewed expectations for box office returns on investment.

Which, obviously to no one's surprise, is a sentiment that I 1000% agree with and think is almost flat out inarguable at this point (hell, Scorsese even made the comparison to "theme park rides", which funny enough is almost a verbatim comparison that I myself have been making with this stuff since at least 2008): mass mainstream pop culture HAS BEEN unusually and demonstrably over-fixated and over-obsessed with children's films & media for the better part of a great deal of the last 15+ years now at least (and apart from the economic realities that Scorsese focuses on, I think that its also tied in no small part to broader cultural fears and anxieties that are largely going unaddressed and undealt with, but that's a WHOLE other can of worms entirely).

While obviously some great adult-skewing films & TV shows have still broken through here or there (more so on Television via cable & streaming), the vast majority of the 2000s and 2010s of mainstream pop culture have been WILDLY more disproportionately over-focused on kids' and family-oriented entertainment overall compared to previous decades.

Like Scorsese (and PLENTY of other major Hollywood filmmakers besides him who simply don't go on the record that often about this, largely because they fear the kind of public backlash that Scorsese's own comments have generated about this), I agree that this ISN'T healthy in a broad sense culturally, and that its almost certainly WAY past overdue in being reigned WAY the hell in.

Obviously a vast, vast majority of people enmeshed in nerd culture will disagree with that assessment and want the childhood nostalgia-train to keep on chugging from now till eternity, and have almost zero interest in either exposing themselves to genuinely adult works or seeing them grow back into being much more of the predominant form of media that they once were. I'm in a minority (albeit a hearteningly growing one in recent years, thankfully I've noticed) that ISN'T happy with this, that hasn't been happy with this right along for the past 15+ years now, and has been wanting to see the cultural pendulum swing back the other way MUCH more starkly for quite some years now.

And on the business end of things (which was honestly much, much more the bigger focus and thrust of Scorsese's statements) he's expressed frustrations at how this hyper focus on children's and "all ages appropriate" films also tend to get other, smaller budget and more mature films blocked from getting made at all. Scorsese himself is of course, much like guys like Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson and so on, enough of a film legend that he's somewhat "grandfathered in" enough that he can more easily get a "real" adult-focused and smaller budget film greenlit and made on his name prestige alone.

But for a VAST majority of younger filmmakers, that's certainly NOT an option (nor will it likely be an option for most of them down the line even if they become successes, given the ever-mounting escalation of these economic trends in the industry), and many are the interesting, unique, smaller budget films for grown people that have been proposed over the years (some which certainly would've been greenlit in earlier decades, or at least would've have had FAR less trouble or resistance in getting there compared to now) that have died on the vine, because business-wise, studios are largely too singlemindedly hyper-focused on investing hundreds of millions into the next would-be Avengers or other comic book blockbuster in the hopes of making back billions.

Literally NOTHING that Scorsese has said on this topic is the least bit revelatory or new in the slightest: this is a conversation that a certain segment of the film-going populace (including a LOT of industry insiders) have been discussing for literally well over a decade+ now, albeit somewhat lowkey.

There's an absolutely fantastic summary about this whole paradigm from I think Ben Mankiewicz (who's family has a pretty deep, dense history within the Hollywood film industry) has expressed somewhat relatively recently that I'll just leave here, cause I think its spot-on the money:

“I'm not burnt out on superhero movies; I've been cremated. I mean... I thought The Dark Knight was REALLY good. But that... I think that was 2008. Minimum of 11 years ago. And like, that was good, but I *got it.* I was largely done after that. I don't care about seeing invincible people punch eachother into buildings. That's uninteresting. But that said, I'm also not a snob about it because people I love and who's opinions I care about, they *love* this stuff.

But its not for me, and I don't think its really for grownups. And the movies aren't targeted for grownups. And I get it, there's a lot of people who grew up with this stuff. But look man, when I was a kid I used to play stratomatic baseball. Dice baseball. And I would create whole seasons, I'd replay entire seasons.

But I'd mix it up, I'd combine two bad teams, make 'em a good team, then move 'em to DC where there was no team and was where I grew up... and then play a 90 game schedule. And then every day I'd write down the real Major League scores so that those were their opponents and I'd have fake standings.

And I mean that... that's *DORKY*. And guess what? I would do it *today* if I had time. It was *thrilling* to me. I mean that was Dungeons & Dragons to a baseball fan. So... I GET liking something.

But the difference is... *my* thing hasn't taken over every billboard. And my thing hasn't pushed out grownup movies about adults. So that's where the resentment comes in.

And *everyone* in L.A. here talks about that you know. Movies either cost a million dollars or two hundred million dollars. There's nothing in the middle where... you know, you spend forty million dollars and you make seventy million and people are happy because you made a little money. Now they NEED to make a BILLION dollars.”

The new Joker film, for all its own faults and shaky issues, at the very least is the latest in a line of high-grossing R rated films that's helping to throw at least somewhat of a potential/possible economic wrench into that particular calculus (which has been the status quo of Hollywood filmmaking for the better part of the 2000s and 2010s) and could theoretically leave much more of an open question on the board (at least for the moment being) regarding the future ahead for films that aren't necessarily vying to be the next Infinity War.

Granted though, Joker is hardly the first such R rated film to do well enough (both critically and commercially) within the past decade that its left folks musing whether it marks some kind of a return of less children & family-oriented movies becoming predominant again: invariably, most all previous would-be "saviors" of smaller budget films for grownups have generally proven to be self-contained flukes thus far. And Joker comes with a whole OTHER set of possible snags in that its a DC based comic book/superhero film, which leaves it open for Hollywood executives learning a ton of the wrong lessons from its success, which already seems to be the case even now (as a ton of potential sequels & franchise/universe building tie-ins are already apparently in the works). Time will tell though.

Point is however, that there has CERTAINLY been an invisible divide here among filmgoers for much of the last decade+ between people who only go to see every new superhero film, nerd-bait franchise film, or or Disney/Pixar family film (many of whom are such people that have posted regularly on this forum for a long, long time now and that I've been talking more publicly about on here lately, rather than just discussing it in off-site discussions as I have since more than a decade ago now) and people who are still actually going out of their way to seek out more mature and genuinely adult-focused films. And its only been in VERY recent years now that this divide is starting to become more widely and publicly acknowledged and seen as a genuine problem (both creatively and economically/financially) for the film industry in general.

Scorsese is just the most high profile public figure yet to speak out openly about this: he's not alone, and for my money, he's certainly not at all wrong in the least. I mean look, I'm as much a dork as anyone else, I've read comics and watched anime and played video games since the 80s. But those things were NEVER the sole, sum total of what I loved and appreciated about art & media at ANY point in my life (far, FAR the hell from it) and there's a LOT to be said for the fact that there's been a HUGE cultural imbalance for more than a decade+ now of people wanting only to marinate and wallow in that stuff and NEVER expose themselves to anything even somewhat more expansive beyond that type of thing.

And if you think that Scorsese or the above-quoted Mankiewicz are harsh about this, you DO NOT want to read what Alan Moore has had to say about this topic for quite some time now. A SMALL sample excerpt:

I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs.

Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century.

The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum.

That's just a TINY, lightweight sample of some of the venomous invective that Moore has for this kind of stuff.

And I mean... while I still overall largely like (even love) a LOT of different superhero comics even to this day still (for damn sure including most of Moore's output), at the same time its outright impossible to not acknowledge and admit the overwhelming obvious here: Moore ain't exactly wrong about any of that. Not at all.

And you can just as easily take his exact - and spot-on accurate - appraisal of superheroes (in either film or comics form) and extend it into anime fandom and the obsessive fixation on Shonen properties and the like (to say nothing about the Moe/Ecchi stuff, which is even FAR more worrying and problematic), and you'd be equally as on the money accurate.

[ABED]

ABED wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 4:27 pmAlthough, I will say for the record that putting a one note dark tone over a movie where people where costumes to beat up bad guys is rather pretentious unless you are pointing out the inherent silliness of it.

If you put a one note tone of ANY KIND (dark, funny, warm, scary, etc) on ANYTHING, its likely going to turn out pretty shit and unwatchable/unreadable. The term "one-note" has for ages and ages been a critic shorthand used to describe crappy, terrible work for a damn good reason: works of a singular lone note most often tend to be inherently and innately boring and one-dimensional and generally not something one should be purposefully aiming for.

Even works that fall fairly squarely into a singular genre (be it horror, action, drama, comedy, etc), the good ones anyway, almost NEVER cordon themselves off to just a singular tone repeated ad nauseam. Robo4900 just now rightly and aptly cited Stephen King and The Shining as examples of works that are staunchly of the horror genre that work on a NUMBER of other tonal levels besides purely and simply "scary".

That's actually, as a lifelong diehard horror nerd, been one of my principal go-to problems with the current spate of "jump-scare haunted house" films that have dominated the genre since Paranormal Activity: they're SO thuddingly singleminded in JUST having the ONE tone of "scary" without understanding in any way that good horror is made when you take NON-scary moments and concepts and CONTRAST THEM against something scary. Most of the best horror works of all time have a whole TON of other tonal elements to them apart from just "scary" (not least of which include, in an overwhelming majority of cases, HUMOR: as the line between "scary" and "funny" is very often a razor thin one).

Art is, invariably, a reflection of life (however warped or cracked said reflection might be): and life itself is in NO WAY just one singular note repeated endlessly (unless you're a DMV, Walmart, or post-office employee ).

Agreed. I like the Timothy Olyphant put it, "I like some drama with my comedy and comedy with my drama."

Like Scorsese (and PLENTY of other major Hollywood filmmakers besides him who simply don't go on the record that often about this, largely because they fear the kind of public backlash that Scorsese's own comments have generated about this), I agree that this ISN'T healthy in a broad sense culturally, and that its almost certainly WAY past overdue in being reigned WAY the hell in.

I have read Scorsese's comments in full context as well as ones he's made years prior about his dislike of Hollywood blockbuster action pics and understand where you and he are coming from, but I think a big part of the picture for him is he loves not just the movies, but the theatrical experience. And in the age of high quality TV's and television programming through streaming and cable, that's taken away from people's desire to go out to the theater. But this is nothing new. The same thing happened when TV became popular and Hollywood's way of combatting competition was to make things tailored for the big screen experience that TV couldn't match. The long tail is very much a thing, and looking at big blockbuster films is not a good barometer of the entire picture. Hell, it's not even the smaller films that are in danger, it's the mid level budget films. The type of films Scorsese loves are being made, they are just now typically TV series. Things are constantly changing forms. The long tail is very much a thing, and the reason streaming is so popular is because it has a lot of niche programming that the economics of Hollywood couldn't have justified even a decade prior. So I'm not overly concerned about the quality of the movies and TV being produced. I think much of that concern comes off as very Chicken Little. What I am concerned about is what looks to be the streaming wars which looks to be another 90s tech bubble.

My biggest concern regarding nerd culture isn't that they necessarily just watch stuff meant for children, it's the gatekeeping and toxicity. Episode 1 may be a terrible movie, but Ahmed Best talking about almost being driven to suicide should've been a sobering moment for anyone paying attention. Then there's the run of the mill obnoxious fixation on things like the "logic" of power levels and the force. I'm not throwing stones, I was fixated on it for a while, but then I had a moment where I went "what is this getting me? Who cares?" Like whatever the hell you want, but keep things in proper perspective.

[Kunzait_83]

My biggest concern regarding nerd culture isn't that they necessarily just watch stuff meant for children, it's the gatekeeping and toxicity. Episode 1 may be a terrible movie, but Ahmed Best talking about almost being driven to suicide should've been a sobering moment for anyone paying attention.

Oh that's a WHOLE other side of things that certainly has me *beyond plenty* concerned as well. I only didn't go there just now because that wasn't where the direction of this discussion was. But I'm 1000% in agreement with you here obviously, and things like death threats being sent to public figures, artists, and content creators responsible for creative decisions that people don't like are just the SMALLEST tip of the iceberg in terms of people's unhealthy level of obsessive fixation on this shit.

One comic book writer that I semi-infrequently follow on Twitter had recently discussed his receiving a whole ton of death threats and late night phone calls from strangers over a retcon he made to an old storyline & character last year. This was also while he was caring for his young 5 or 6 year old son, who is currently suffering from some form of life-threatening illness (I think it was Leukemia IIRC).

I wasn't all that fond of the story decision myself, but I simply just shrugged, said "That's kinda lame and annoying, oh well." and went on with my day. Taking something so stupidly minor to goddamn DEATH THREATS is 1000% certifiably demented and sociopathic on an immense fucking scale. All the more so given the further context of what was going on in his own life at the time: these people are just regular-ass human beings with real lives and loved ones same as the rest of us, and the ease to which so many people on the internet find it so horrifyingly natural and effortless to dehumanize other people that they talk to through the computer screen and treat them so abusively is nothing short of blood curdling.

That's just one fairly ordinary example, and hardly even remotely close to the worst or most through the looking glass-scale psychopathic example of online fanboys taking their childish, infantile brattiness out into the real world to horrifying results that I could name. GamerGate itself is without a doubt one of the quintessential examples of a bunch of resentful, entitled internet nerds having an utterly corrosive influence on a VAST swath of gaming and youth culture, and even politics (the ramifications of which are STILL reverberating into the current zeitgeist even now).

Nerd culture as a whole in general is, and has long been, just a VAST trainwreck of sad, miserable fucking people taking and projecting their own pain and personal failings out onto others that they see and interact with both online and IRL. Its been in DIRE need of growing the fuck up on an IMMENSE scale, and I don't necessarily even see a lot of these problems that we're talking about right now as being all that particularly separate and disconnected from one another: I think that a lot of, if not ALL of this dysfunctional behavior tends to stem from more or less effectively the same recurring lack of emotional maturity, psychological introspection, basic human empathy, and repressed fears and insecurities that seem to be endemic in all of the worst, most corrosively toxic people that populate online nerd spaces in general.

[ABED]

I'm inclined to believe, or maybe just hope it's a very small percentage of people that engage in this sort of behavior.

I like a good mix of both adult oriented and kid friendly stories, but what I also like to do is look into the background of some of my childhood favorites, even if the stories themselves aren't very good. The BTS stuff and influences are often fascinating. I find that's a good way to keep in touch with childhood interests but in a more mature sophisticated manner.

[MyVisionity]

Does it know when to be serious? This is a series where in the middle of a fight where a main character gets into an argument with one of his attacks for so long that the scene cuts to the villain drinking a ice cream float out of boredom.

Except your example comes from one of the weakest sections of the Majin Boo saga, an arc that is full of intentionally un-serious sequences like that one. If it's a question of humor undercutting more serious moments, that example doesn't really hold up.

In inherently silly worlds like those of superheroes or DB, humor can be a great way to tell the audience that the work isn't tone deaf, it understands how silly it is, and I find that makes the more serious moments land harder than if the tone was constantly serious.

I disagree that the world of superheroes, or rather superhero comics, is inherently silly. Especially compared to Dragon Ball. I think it's a presumption that many make which results in films with excessive humor. Say what you will about the pre-MCU comic book films, but at least they had a better understanding of tonality, balance etc. Marvel Comics weren't supposed to be comedies. It's almost like the mindset is that of the 60s Batman show where they just do a parody instead because they find the source material so ridiculous.

[Kunzait_83]

Say what you will about the pre-MCU comic book films, but at least they had a better understanding of tonality, balance etc.

Go back and try watching the 2003 Daredevil film with Ben Affleck sometime and get back to me on that.

Or hell, virtually ANY scene with Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin in the 2002 Raimi Spider-Man movie.

The early/mid 2000s run of superhero movies have NOT aged in any way remotely well or gracefully. Almost the whole 2000s and 2010s run of superhero films from the original 2000 X-Men movie up through today are largely 99% pure embarrassing dogshit, pockmarked with the VERY rare, occasional gem that almost feels like it snuck its way into existence on sheer accident.

[ABED]

Does it know when to be serious? This is a series where in the middle of a fight where a main character gets into an argument with one of his attacks for so long that the scene cuts to the villain drinking a ice cream float out of boredom.

Except your example comes from one of the weakest sections of the Majin Boo saga, an arc that is full of intentionally un-serious sequences like that one. If it's a question of humor undercutting more serious moments, that example doesn't really hold up.

In inherently silly worlds like those of superheroes or DB, humor can be a great way to tell the audience that the work isn't tone deaf, it understands how silly it is, and I find that makes the more serious moments land harder than if the tone was constantly serious.

I disagree that the world of superheroes, or rather superhero comics, is inherently silly. Especially compared to Dragon Ball. I think it's a presumption that many make which results in films with excessive humor. Say what you will about the pre-MCU comic book films, but at least they had a better understanding of tonality, balance etc. Marvel Comics weren't supposed to be comedies. It's almost like the mindset is that of the 60s Batman show where they just do a parody instead because they find the source material so ridiculous.

They love the source material, and they understand as Kunzait rightly pointed out that human beings aren't one note. Tone is one of those misunderstood concepts; people talk about as if changes in tone is a bad thing. That is of course horseshit. Even in the darkest of moments, people will often try and break the tension with a joke. Buffy Season 6 is easily the darkest of the series, but it's also one of the silliest. The Trio is one of the best group of villains in the series because the evil is almost banal so when they go really dark, it lands hard.

I've read plenty of Marvel comics over the years and they are chock full of of humor.

And like I said, having plenty of humor, specifically character based humor, can really allow the more dramatic moments to land because there's contrast and humor bonds us with characters. We care what happens to them.

Superheroes are very silly. It's people playing dress up to fight crime. It works because it's a colorful over the top genre, but if you try to take it 100 percent serious it all falls apart very quickly. Instead of Batman being heroic, if you put him in the real world, then you see him for what he is - the embodiment of white male privilege. He's a rich boy who instead of seaking a psychiatrist to help get over his issues, he dresses up in an expensive Halloween costume to live out a power fantasy. Even Nolan was right to point it out when Ra's al Ghul mocks him for taking his advice about being theatrical too literally.

I've started to come around on the Buu arc. There are things I don't like about it, such as it feeling like Toriyama is throwing everything against a wall to see what sticks and it's too long while simultaneously being rushed. However, I've come around about the humor. Sometimes it doesn't work, but the contrast between Buu's childlike demeanor and his insanity and cruelty works like gangbusters. Keep in mind he looks like a giant gumball. It's the same reason I love the Ginyu Force. Had the Saiyan arc not had some of the best action in the series and Vegeta not developed over time, but the tone of the arc remained the same, then the villains wouldn't be amongst DB's best.

[Kunzait_83]

Superheroes are very silly. It's people playing dress up to fight crime. It works because it's a colorful over the top genre, but if you try to take it 100 percent serious it all falls apart very quickly. Instead of Batman being heroic, if you put him in the real world, then you see him for what he is - the embodiment of white male privilege. He's a rich boy who instead of seaking a psychiatrist to help get over his issues, he dresses up in an expensive Halloween costume to live out a power fantasy. Even Nolan was right to point it out when Ra's al Ghul mocks him for taking his advice about being theatrical too literally.

If Bruce Wayne actually existed as Batman in our world, in the real world, he'd be an absolute and unmitigated fucking monster. He would in NO way be a good, righteous, heroic, or noble person. At all. Robin alone (in ANY incarnation) would be an unspeakable fucking horror to put another small child through in real life. This was literally the ENTIRE point of characters like Rorschach in Watchmen: showing the utterly deranged madness and raw, searing traumatic pain and unhinged lunacy that lies behind the entire fascistic facade that characters like Wayne utilize to become superheros like Batman.

Hell, same goes for Tony Stark/Iron Man. I've always found it exceedingly weird and ironic that Stark has become such a beloved cultural figure of hero worship in the mainstream zeitgeist post MCU and RDJ. When you break down the character, he's a sleazy, scummy, philandering war profiteer and malignant narcissist who made his entire family fortune on the deaths and suffering of countless faceless innocents at the hands of military-grade weapons and bombs, and hardly improves by all THAT great a degree when he suddenly has a crisis of conscience and decides to personally take matters into his own hands by personally turning his weapons on people whom he personally believes and dictates to be deserving of being on the receiving end of them.

Stark is literally the Marvel EMBODIMENT of the upper 1% multi-multi-billionaires (who in a great many cases, often make their fortunes from either military weapons contracting, or other such similarly slimy industries like oil and fossil fuels and the like, which are causing no end of death and suffering around the world) whose greed are directly causing a TON of political, social, and economic instability and unrest currently IRL. And he's painted as THE hero of the MCU. If this guy existed IRL, he'd be arguably an even WORSE monster than Wayne (certainly one with a great deal more blood on his hands).

Some of these characters - who are supposed to be absolute unblemishable paragons of heroism and noble selflessness - are such a FRAGILE feather brush away from being some of the most despicable pieces of human pond scum if you were to transpose them from the fantastical fantasy world of superhero comics into the ACTUAL realities of the world we really live in and inhabit here IRL.

That's hardly a new or groundbreaking analysis by any stretch, and its basically been the ugly, perverse reality lying at the heart of the whole superhero fantasy that stories like Watchmen and Bratpack have long ago effectively made vastly more explicit in the mainstream cultural awareness.

Thinking that most of these characters would still work in the same exact way (even just purely in terms of sheer morals and ethics alone) if you were to transpose them from the fantasyland on the page and into the really-for-real world we live in is about as delusional and detached from rationality as a kid genuinely thinking he CAN in fact fly like Superman if he jumps off his home's roof and believes it hard enough.

[MyVisionity]

Superheroes are very silly. It's people playing dress up to fight crime. It works because it's a colorful over the top genre, but if you try to take it 100 percent serious it all falls apart very quickly. Instead of Batman being heroic, if you put him in the real world, then you see him for what he is - the embodiment of white male privilege. He's a rich boy who instead of seaking a psychiatrist to help get over his issues, he dresses up in an expensive Halloween costume to live out a power fantasy. Even Nolan was right to point it out when Ra's al Ghul mocks him for taking his advice about being theatrical too literally.

Taking the comic books and putting them into movies is not the same thing as putting them into the real world. Both the films and comics are fantasy. Of course they shouldn't be taken 100% seriously. But the comic books were never aiming for "silly" or "comedy". They generally played it straight. So too should the movies. I don't mind humor, but the balance has to be right or else you risk disrespecting the source material or misrepresenting the stories and characters to the masses.

I'm not a fan of the notion that Batman needs a psychiatrist or has "issues". In the real world possibly. I don't mind it being used in the Nolan films as humor, but that's about it.

[MasenkoHA]

I'm not a fan of the notion that Batman needs a psychiatrist or has "issues".

But a number of portrayals of Batman do point out that he has issues. It’s not even a hot take at this point. It’s usually an aside tongue and cheek type thing but it’s there and it’s pretty frequent.

[JulieYBM]

Bruce Wayne has issues. He dresses up as a bat and beats people up and then puts something akin to no effort into improving wages, education, health care, child care, and other things in Gotham. The guy needs help, he can't even keep a steady relationship down because he'd rather be expressing his emotions through violence against others rather than take care of his own well-being.

Bruce Wayne would be somewhere between a terrible human being in real life and a mentally ill person who should be receiving intensive care. As a fictional character the vagueness and lack of cathartic release in his actions makes for boring film and television.