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Denis Villeneuve Says ‘Cut and Paste’ Marvel Movies Have ‘Turned Us Into Zombies’

Sometimes I am impressed with the idiocy of some of the users around here. Someday, you'll grow to be better. Today is not that day tho.
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Ted talks and comedy shows are people standing and talking. they can be 10/10 for what they do. they share a format but not the purpose.
Fair enough, but I would also say that those aren't "films". You *can* judge Citizen Kane vs. Iron-Man because they are both fictional story-driven films, IMO. But there is an argument to be made that say, Endgame is a 10/10 popcorn flick. But that is just too granular and wishy-washy to define.

Agreed.

Stupid people enjoy stupid films, whereas non-stupid people enjoy well-made films.

So in order to enjoy a funny / popcorn flick that isn't an Oscar-bait film... you have to be stupid?

That's a tall assumption there, pal.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
He's right. I have been trashing marvel movies for almost a decade now. I dont understand how you can watch the same exact movie over and over again. He is a 100% right about copy pasta.

They are movies made for kids who used to play with Action figures. The fact that they came mostly after TDK, Watchmen and Batman Begins is even more disheartening because they basically embraced the 90s Batman movies instead of the Nolan movies that showed that comic book movies can be so much more.

Hell, Id rather watch 90s action movies like Face/Off, Con Air, Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and The Rock than some of the forgettable trash marvel has put out over the years. Even Doctor Strange which had so much potential was a basically Iron Man with portals. So many amazing visuals with buildings shifting and yet the movie pales in comparison to inception.

Even 2000 non comic book movies like Gladiator, LOTR, Harry Potter series were all way better made than Marvel movies which feel like made for tv movies in comparison.
 
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Stuart360

Member
I agree with him, but at the same time i dont really have a problem with Marvel films, and if people like them.
I just wish there werent so many of them, you know multiple films a year, and then tv shows on top. Its complete overkill and still they gross huge. I mean its been years of this shit and this stuff usually goes in cycles but there is no hint of this slowing down at all.
 
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Yoboman

Member
I can enjoy Marvel movies for what they are. Fun popcorn movies. And they have always been a bit formulaic but then you get the occasional gem that breaks the formula a bit is genuinely great for it eg GOTG, Thor Ragnarok, the Infinity Saga

I also enjoy Denis Villeneuve movies. But I could also go and say something like Incendies was a true masterpiece and now he is making cut and paste licensed sci fi movies
 

KAL2006

Banned
I think the best answers is to let the audience decide. So I assume this guys next movie will outsell Shang Chi.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
The zombies created the marvel movies, not the other way around.

And there's nothing wrong with being a zombie sometimes. If you can't enjoy a bunch of different kinds of cinema then that's on you.

Either way Denis V is rad and his comment wasn't even that cynical. He finishes the statement basically saying he thinks there's plenty of money being thrown at great films and he isn't pessimistic.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Once you stop treating the MCU as movies, and start seeing it as what it actually are: a very expensive tv series - it all makes a bit more sense.
 
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LordPezix

Member
He's not wrong.

The MCU is the keeping up with the kardashians of movies. Fairly mindless entertainment but it still enjoyed en masse.
 

GeorgPrime

Banned
That explains my thirst for blood and my hunger for brains. Thats normal right? Guys? Tell me thats fine. Guys?
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I agree that the marvel movies are cut and paste but I don't think they have turned us into zombies. Summer action blockbusters were already formulaic, the 'universe' actually makes the marvel movies a little more interesting.
I'll be going to the theater to see Dune just like I did Black Widow and Shang-Chi.
 

MaestroMike

Gold Member
If it ain't broken dont fix it disney is the king at the box office for a reason and action movies are action movies story doesn't matter as much for this genre people into these type of movies get their kicks from sweet action sequences a nice story is just a cherry on top you want a sweet story read a book
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Some of these directors are too enamored with themselves. You make movies pal, get a grip.

Hell you are making a remake, your last movie was a sequel, at the end of the day you aren’t really bringing anything new to the table. Making it more boring doesn’t make it better.
 
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dcll

Banned
I don’t like comic shit, Star Wars shit or any of this stuff but couldn’t care less what other people enjoy or like.
 

JonSnowball

Member
Most of the Marvel films are shot like low budget television shows and feel partially improvised with shoddy acting. They're still fun to watch for the most part, but they're Michael Bay Transformers sequel level movies....except the Transformers movies were filmed better...I mean - did anyone watch the trailer for Spider-Man : No Way Home? It looks so damn cheap and poorly done...I miss Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films...it'll be interesting to see how his Doctor Strange movie turns out. Those Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies actually felt like theatrical films with talent and effort behind them from a technical standpoint.

I thought the origin movies or whatever you'd call them were alright, then a steep downhill turn around Avengers that felt like it was filmed by a college student. The Guardians of the Galaxy films are probably the most theatrical feeling out of the entire Marvel film universe.
 
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sol_bad

Member
It's kind of weird how people shit on the MCU for being mindless films when pop culture and popular films have always been about mindless fun.

Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Total Recall, Robocop, Jaws, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Goonies.
It's all mindless fun, none of them have anything important to say or have deep themes.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
He's totally right. I love to see a film that comes out of a director's quixotic, personal, passionate imagination, and not a film that is manufactured to entertain large numbers of people efficiently, even those I am often among those entertained.

I love to be entertained, I love those movies, but the ones that really move me are the ones where a director felt that something had to be said and he or she said it.

Film schools used to have the values of the liberal arts schools, now film schools are more allied to business schools in terms of their values. Success, money, achievement, and power, rather than vision, imagination, truth, and social change.
 

JonSnowball

Member
It's kind of weird how people shit on the MCU for being mindless films when pop culture and popular films have always been about mindless fun.

Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Total Recall, Robocop, Jaws, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Goonies.
It's all mindless fun, none of them have anything important to say or have deep themes.
None of the examples you listed are generic as a large portion of the Marvel films are, that's where the criticism is. Every example you gave is a well produced film, they aren't churned out sequels that are difficult to distinguish from one another...

Not to say I hate the Marvel films, in fact there's several I really enjoy, but a large portion of them over the last several years feel incredibly similar as if Disney/Marvel have mandated they all have a similar sense of humour and are shot the same - a couple of the recent releases feel like budget television shows with high-end effects.
 
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Amiga

Member
He's right. I have been trashing marvel movies for almost a decade now. I dont understand how you can watch the same exact movie over and over again. He is a 100% right about copy pasta.

They are movies made for kids who used to play with Action figures. The fact that they came mostly after TDK, Watchmen and Batman Begins is even more disheartening because they basically embraced the 90s Batman movies instead of the Nolan movies that showed that comic book movies can be so much more.

Hell, Id rather watch 90s action movies like Face/Off, Con Air, Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic and The Rock than some of the forgettable trash marvel has put out over the years. Even Doctor Strange which had so much potential was a basically Iron Man with portals. So many amazing visuals with buildings shifting and yet the movie pales in comparison to inception.

Even 2000 non comic book movies like Gladiator, LOTR, Harry Potter series were all way better made than Marvel movies which feel like made for tv movies in comparison.

the action themes of the MCU are silly. but the character development is deep. they are different people start/middle/end evolved through what they went through. Nolan's Batman is the same throughout the movies.

and the similarity in some production is deliberate because the MCU is one story.
 

sol_bad

Member
None of the examples you listed are generic as a large portion of the Marvel films are, that's where the criticism is. Every example you gave is a well produced film, they aren't churned out sequels that are difficult to distinguish from one another...

Not to say I hate the Marvel films, in fact there's several I really enjoy, but a large portion of them over the last several years feel incredibly similar as if Disney/Marvel have mandated they all have a similar sense of humour and are shot the same - a couple of the recent releases feel like budget television shows with high-end effects.

The MCU films are well produced as well. And majority of directors have their own significant feel to them.

Black Panther feels similar in tone to Fruitvale Station and Creed.
Thor: Ragnorak feels similar in tone to Boy, What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Guardians of the Galaxy feels similar in tone to Super and The Suicide Squad.
The Russo brothers films all feel similar to each other in tone and different to the other MCU films.
Iron Man 3 feels like a Shane Black film.

Each film has a different tone and different structure to them.
Iron Man 1, 2 and 3 are all completely different films. So are Thor 1, 2 and 3.
Ant-Man 1 and 2 have completely different structures.
 

mortal

Banned
Some of these directors are too enamored with themselves. You make movies pal, get a grip.

Hell you are making a remake, your last movie was a sequel, at the end of the day you aren’t really bringing anything new to the table. Making it more boring doesn’t make it better.
Except he's not. He's adapting the Dune novel. The David Lynch Dune film is not an original IP.
Even though there was a mini-series from a while back, Dune hasn't graced the silver screen since 1984.
Compare that to the multi-release phase approach of MCU films + the accompanying series formats on streams.

He directed a sequel to one of the most preeminent films in all of science fiction.
A film that hasn't received any sort of direct sequel since 1987 until one of the original screenwriters thought it was worth telling a new story in that world.
This isn't even considering his previous films like Prisoners, Sicario, Enemy, Incendies, Arrival. Some are original screenplays, some of which are loosely adapted from lesser-known novels or plays.
To claim he hasn't brought anything new to the table is a stretch imo.


Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Total Recall, Robocop, Jaws, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Goonies.
It's all mindless fun, none of them have anything important to say or have deep themes.
The last thing I would call any of those films is "mindless". Fun, yes, but not mindless.
I don't understand the desire to spin being vacuous into a positive quality.

A good film is not mindless, even if it's comedy or pure action. Good comedy is cleverly written and requires you to get the humor, for example. That's like the opposite of mindless.
Good action requires amazing choreography and editing to have the most visceral impact on the senses.
 
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VN1X

Banned
My gf loves the Marvel films (so much so that she watches them multiple times) and really, really wanted me to see Captain Marvel as well. I finally caved but damn... :messenger_grimmacing_

Meanwhile I'm trying to get her to watch actual good shit like Jackie Brown, The Game, Alien, Logan, The Vengeance Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, etc (just to name a few) but instead she'd rather just watch Iron Man 3 again "because it's been years since she last saw it". Bless her heart but fuckin' hell lol.

That said I did manage to get her to watch Prisoners a while a go so that's a win!
 

Kenpachii

Member
People like entertaining movies.

Most movies these days are dog shit, while marvel movies aren't the best they are for sure entertaining. Something most of those emo movie directors don't understand.
 
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Dacon

Banned
I think he's right.

Superhero movies are general just routine turn off your brain entertainment. Which is fine, sometimes that's all you need but there's a deluge of this kind of entertainment in films and it has become somewhat tiresome.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Not true. We were already zombies before the MCU.
I think we've been Zombies ever since the year 1997. That to me seemed like the turning point year of recycled cookie cut movies and sequels trending. When practical effects, veteran actors, respectable composers, and new ideas started leaving Hollywood; 85% of everything I saw come out was zombie fodder.
 

sol_bad

Member
I love Villeneuve's movies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival and Bladerunner are all top tier films.
I don't know why people have to get up in arms about only liking "intellectual" films and why people are up in arms about people liking only Hollywood action films.
 
I love Villeneuve's movies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival and Bladerunner are all top tier films.
I don't know why people have to get up in arms about only liking "intellectual" films and why people are up in arms about people liking only Hollywood action films.
Prisoners and Sicario were actually very good. He should stay away from sci-fi though.
 
His take on Bladerunner was fucking awful and since moving into directing he's left every studio he's worked with in debt. He needs to get off his high horse because a standing ovation at a film festival isn't success in the real world.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Dude, you just hired fucking batista, zendaya and acquaman because they are famous from all the superhero stuff they do, surely not only for their acting skills (unless you like acceptable actors at best), not sure why he feels about shitting on marvel since they do a complete different type of cinema than him.

Sniffing your ownfarts much?!

And this come from a guy who gives 2 shits about superhero movies.
 
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Lunarorbit

Gold Member
Wrong. Guy is an idiot just like Scorsese. Fine to not like those movies, but denying the fact that a lot of people love and enjoy them, because you know, tastes and shit and just posting hateful shit is dumb af. I love Blade Runner 2049 and Dune and Avengers and everything else. Just watch the movies and enjoy them. Stop posting dumb shit just to attract attention to your audience. It's ridiculous.
These two have really lost perspective on what it means to be creative in cinema.

Martin has made nothing but gangster movies for the last 50 years and he has the balls to critique marvel movies? If de Niro, new York, or mob hits aren't in the movie that he's lost. Try writing and directing a comedy and get back to me Marty.

Dennis is even worse trying to twist himself out of being in a pretzel. Oh I don't mind big budgets like marvel he says but I'm trying to do something different. Really? Redoing an 80s movie based on a book? So you're doing game of thrones on space with the space slug from empire strikes back? Got it.

Fucking hypocrites. Be salty that Disney has a legion of creative writers. But to say it's all the same? Well so are your movies guys
 
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