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Is Blade still the best character Marvel movie?

I like me some X-men, Spiderman, the Avengers, and even Iron Man when it comes to older and newer Marvel movies.

However there's something about Blade that just clicks no matter how long it's been. I decided to rewatch the Blade trilogy and despite the first movie being made in the 90's, it has a better plot, better acting, and great fight scenes that Marvel just hasn't managed to top yet. Westly Snipes pulled off the character in ways no one else has ever been able to, the fights are well done, and the vampire theme really hits home.

It doesn't surprise me that this was the movie that put Marvel on the map in cinema. It was because of Blades success that we even have the MCU in the first place. I find it insulting that Marvel refuses to let Westly Snipes return to his role as Blade, but that seems to be mostly a Disney decision so nothing can be done.

Damn Disney, just keeps turning things into poison.



They just don't make action scenes like what's in this clip anymore, especially with Marvel movies.
 

Hinedorf

Banned
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Wesley Snipes is about fucking stupid for how he treated the franchise, his costars, and himself. Please don't give him any passes for just being an overall shitbag human being when he was the star. And to be fair he had 1.5 good Blade films
 
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sol_bad

Member
IMO Blade 1 has not aged well at all. The first action scene is damn great but the rest of the film is very average at best.
The story line actually makes zero sense if you think about it. Frost wants to turn into La Magra to destroy humanity? Why? To destroy their only food chain?
N'Bushe Wright is also a terrible actor, which is probably why we never saw her in another film.

It certainly didn't put Marvel on the map either, that would be relegated to X-Men.

The sequel though, directed by Del Toro, kicks all sorts of ass!

As for the new film, Mahershala Ali is a damn fine actor, entirely different league to Wesley Snipes. Having someone of his class in the MCU is a god send. The film itself can't be critiqued until it releases though.
 

highrider

Banned
Love Blade, pissed me off how it somehow was irrelevant after Black Panther. That said, Wesley could have been an even bigger movie star but he obviously made some bad decisions lol. I actually felt bad for Reynolds and Jessica because you could tell they were just trying to salvage a bad situation. They need to do a new Blade with Denzel’s son.
 

kunonabi

Member
Its between Blade, Punisher (2004), Hulk, and the first ASM for me. Blade is hard to argue with as it pretty much made the character worthwhile.
 
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Dacon

Banned
Blade is one of the most entertaining at the very least. I've watched it a bunch of times and still enjoy it, a lot of the Marvel films I just don't ever really want to watch again.

giphy.gif



Wesley Snipes is about fucking stupid for how he treated the franchise, his costars, and himself. Please don't give him any passes for just being an overall shitbag human being when he was the star. And to be fair he had 1.5 good Blade films


This has fuck all to do with the quality of the film, or his acting in them.
 
giphy.gif



Wesley Snipes is about fucking stupid for how he treated the franchise, his costars, and himself. Please don't give him any passes for just being an overall shitbag human being when he was the star. And to be fair he had 1.5 good Blade films

None of this has anything to do with the thread, it's just about the movie not the background.
 
It certainly didn't put Marvel on the map either, that would be relegated to X-Men.

This is an extremely false statement that takes only a bit of googling to learn about. it was a massive hit and saved the comic-movie adaptions, and it wasMarvels first big successful film. It also knocked down several hits at the time like Saving Private Ryan. You can find amny articles on how Blades success impacted Marvel and Comic movies in general.
 

Pejo

Gold Member
It's definitely one of the most rewatchable. I don't know what it is, but I vastly prefer the choreographed action movies of the 90s/early 2000s than I do the CG-fests of today.
 

crumbs

Member
I remember going to watch this in the theaters back in '98 and fully expecting it to suck, but being shocked at how entertaining it was.

Recently re-watched it (and Blade 2) this summer and they still hold up.
 

sol_bad

Member
This is an extremely false statement that takes only a bit of googling to learn about. it was a massive hit and saved the comic-movie adaptions, and it wasMarvels first big successful film. It also knocked down several hits at the time like Saving Private Ryan. You can find amny articles on how Blades success impacted Marvel and Comic movies in general.

ummmm What?

Blade - 1998. Budget - 45 million. Box office - 131 million.

Saving Private Ryan - 1998. Budget - 70 million. Box office - 482 million

And than if you want to compare Blade with X-Men.

X-Men - 2000. Budget 75 million. Box office - 296 million.

Blade 2 - 2002. Budget - 54 million. Box Office - 155 million.
Very little growth in interest for the franchise.

X-Men 2 - 2003. Budget - 110 million. Box office - 407 million

Blade is no where near as influential as you would like to think it is. No one knew Blade back then and even today there are people that don't realise he is a Marvel comics character. I'm not talking about us that live and breath movies/comics and sit on a chat forum talking about it. I'm talking about normal every day people that don't have the foggiest idea what the difference is between Batman and Iron Man (IE DC comics and Marvel comics), the majority of what audiences are made up of.
 

Skyr

Member
I don’t care about the sequels but Blade 1 is still my favorite marvel movie.
It also reminds me of a time when nobody cared about the race of the characters or any agenda. We simply enjoyed the movie for what it was.
But you know exactly if they remade it today they would fuck it up.
 
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Nvzman

Member
No


I think Logan is also a fantastic movie but imo the first two sam raimi spider-man movies take the cake. Lots of genuine soul you never really see in most mainstream movies in general anymore.
 
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Sygma

Member
Yeah by far, Blade is the only one who has depth. Supposedly Mahershala Ali is taking the mantle but the dude just can't fight for shit. Have you seen the action sequences involving him in Luke Cage ?

I don't know
 
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mekes

Member
I have the trilogy on blu ray. I only keep blu rays of movies I really enjoy and tend to rewatch every so often. Blade is my favourite Marvel movie, and the only marvel movies I own.

On the remake, I’m interested but will remain sceptical until I see Ali in an action sequence. And I’ve got too many questions in general about the kind of direction they might try to take the movie in. Hopefully it will be good.
 
Blade still kicks ass. The few CGI shots are pretty terrible, but other than that, the movie holds up. Well shot, fun characters, great action, decent story, and really cool world building.

What I liked about the early marvel flicks (blade, Spiderman, x men) is that they all had their own vibe and style. I get what Disney is doing with the MCU, but they all started to feel too similar to me
 

GymWolf

Member
Maybe not the best character but surely some of the best films.

First 2 films are better than 95% of marvel and dc output in the last years.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
I'm not into comics so up until recently I didn't know Blade was a Marvel character. All the movies are great, however it was Wesley Snipes who made that happen. I didn't like the tv show and I'm not liking the casting choice for the new film.
 
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ummmm What?

Blade - 1998. Budget - 45 million. Box office - 131 million.

Saving Private Ryan - 1998. Budget - 70 million. Box office - 482 million

So your comaprison is nonsense.

Blade knocked Private ryan off of number 1 on the charts, and was the first comic movie to hold that position. There are many articles about Blades infleunece, some from Marve, themselves.

This isn't an opinion you're just wrong. You could look up blades influences but you're too busy trying to downplay it by confusing the whole point of the thread, like thinking I said Blade made more money than SPR, which I never did. In movies, kncoked down only means one thing and that's the charts.
 
Yeah by far, Blade is the only one who has depth. Supposedly Mahershala Ali is taking the mantle but the dude just can't fight for shit. Have you seen the action sequences involving him in Luke Cage ?

I don't know

Thing about Blade is that Westly produced and was the primary director for the fight scenes so without him they will likely go for the slow generic fight scene we commonly see in action movies. Nice and safe and boring.

Westly directed like he was trying to be the coolest director in town and just focused on making it look like everyone was beating the shit out of each other in impressive choreography. Another big thing was Westly had basically looked like the comic book character in ways, he had the uniform, the muscle, and the haircut.

I don’t care about the sequels but Blade 1 is still my favorite marvel movie.
It also reminds me of a time when nobody cared about the race of the characters or any agenda. We simply enjoyed the movie for what it was.
But you know exactly if they remade it today they would fuck it up.

On the fire actor end they asked marvel if they had any black marvel characters so there was some of that there, but the motivations were different then they were today. Westly of course didn't care and neither did most of the cast.
 

petran79

Banned
Blade is no where near as influential as you would like to think it is. No one knew Blade back then and even today there are people that don't realise he is a Marvel comics character. I'm not talking about us that live and breath movies/comics and sit on a chat forum talking about it. I'm talking about normal every day people that don't have the foggiest idea what the difference is between Batman and Iron Man (IE DC comics and Marvel comics), the majority of what audiences are made up of.

The Crow was also very important and if Brandon Lee hadn't died it would be even more popular with the sequels
 

VulcanRaven

Member
I haven't seen Blade in a long time. I remember it being good but there are better Marvel movies. Spider-Man 2 is the best:

Screen-Shot-2017-03-28-at-11.59.15-PM.png
 

Sygma

Member
Man if it wasn't for Blade, Marvel at the cinema would have never been in today's state. Not to diss on my man Dolph for his Punisher's take but seriously the first Marvel flicks were basically horrible
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
The original first movie with Snipes is one of my favorits Marvel movies outside the MCU.

I really am conflicted about the MCU upcoming one. Hopefully the actor Ali-what's-his-name can pull it off. And then there's the issue whether it'll be PG-13 or R. I doubt the latter because it's an MCU movie.

Punisher TV show got away with it because it's a TV show of course. It was also terribly dull. Dufuq it's Punisher! How dufuq did Disney turn Punisher into a yawn fest?
 

kunonabi

Member
The original first movie with Snipes is one of my favorits Marvel movies outside the MCU.

I really am conflicted about the MCU upcoming one. Hopefully the actor Ali-what's-his-name can pull it off. And then there's the issue whether it'll be PG-13 or R. I doubt the latter because it's an MCU movie.

Punisher TV show got away with it because it's a TV show of course. It was also terribly dull. Dufuq it's Punisher! How dufuq did Disney turn Punisher into a yawn fest?

Marvel is pretty embarrassed by the Punisher these days. That's why the Netflix show goes so far out of it's way to not really be about the Punisher and turn the big, bad military into the real problem and not actual criminals and the drug trade.
 
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sol_bad

Member
Punisher TV show got away with it because it's a TV show of course. It was also terribly dull. Dufuq it's Punisher! How dufuq did Disney turn Punisher into a yawn fest?

It's one of the reasons Matvel Television has been given the boot no doubt. Expectations weren't met on many fronts.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
It's one of the reasons Matvel Television has been given the boot no doubt. Expectations weren't met on many fronts.
Terrible show. I made it half way through the first season and never came back.

Only good episode was the first one. What the hell were they thinking?

I'm gonna tag my fren MetalAlien MetalAlien who I think likes the old Punisher movies. Have you seen the Netflix show, MA? It's horrible and dull af. Probably the worst thing to come out of the MCU so far. They actually fucked up Punisher for MCU. I'd be royally pissed if Doctor Strange got that kind of treatment.

Disney Marvel abused this character and show so much I would be tempted to call a domestic abuse hotline.
 

MetalAlien

Banned
Terrible show. I made it half way through the first season and never came back.

Only good episode was the first one. What the hell were they thinking?

I'm gonna tag my fren MetalAlien MetalAlien who I think likes the old Punisher movies. Have you seen the Netflix show, MA? It's horrible and dull af. Probably the worst thing to come out of the MCU so far. They actually fucked up Punisher for MCU. I'd be royally pissed if Doctor Strange got that kind of treatment.

Disney Marvel abused this character and show so much I would be tempted to call a domestic abuse hotline.
The new punisher would make an ok movie but there was not enough material for a mini series. Also not brutal enough.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
The new punisher would make an ok movie but there was not enough material for a mini series. Also not brutal enough.
It committed the sin of being boring.... for a Punisher show.

It's like if Death Wish was just 95 percent dialogue and whiney.
 

MetalAlien

Banned
It committed the sin of being boring.... for a Punisher show.

It's like if Death Wish was just 95 percent dialogue and whiney.
I'm pretty sure it began as just a movie and then someone got the great idea of stretching it out to a series because... yea more money but they never bothered to considered if they had enough story for that.
 

Doom85

Member
Blade 1 and 2 are great, but not among my all-time favorites. And no, as much as Wesley Snipes brought to the role, we shouldn't blame primarily Disney for his fuck-ups. His behavior on the set of 3 was inexcusable. I'm not saying one can't think enough time has passed to forgive Snipes for it, but blaming primarily Disney for the situation is unreasonable.

The Dark Knight, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, and Logan are my top 3 favorite superhero movies (Winter Soldier would be #4, but I'd have to think about #5).
 

kunonabi

Member
My comic book top ten boils down to the following:

Blade
Hulk
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Rocketeer
The Punisher
The Crow
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Batman Returns
Superman: The Movie
Judge Dredd

That isn't really in order but Blade would probably be top 5 for me.
 
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