Kev Previews Thor and Captain America

At the moment, pretty much all we know of these movies are a few still photographs, a couple of logos and some costume designs. All of which are irrelevant when it comes to predicting how these films are going to play out. Whether you know it or not, chances are you’ve already seen them.

How do I know this, you ask? Well, it really is pretty simple. All it involves is a little application of pattern analysis, covered in a seething, pessimistic cynicism over the writing ability of Hollywood. That and the DVD copies of The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man.

Both of those films are identical.

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“No they’re not! One of them has a big green dude, and the other has a drunken man-slut in a robot suit!”

I hear you say. Well, you’re right, but it doesn’t prevent those films being exactly the same, nor does it prevent them being the template that I predict Captain America and Thor to follow. Let me show you:

We’ll start with the Hulk, because it is the most basic. All you need to do is boil it down to its base plot elements:

You have a Hero and a Villain: Bruce Banner and General Ross.

The Hero has something the Villain wants (The ability to turn into the Hulk) and the Villan has no way of obtaining said item. (Because he keeps getting his ass kicked by the Hulk)

So, the Villain employs a Pawn to take on the Hero. This Pawn is nothing more than a bigger, meaner version of the Hero. (Emil Bronsky/The Abomination)

There is a fight. The Hero wins. Hip-hip-Horay. Roll credits.

Now Iron Man:

Tony Stark has an Arc Reactor that Obadiah Stains wants.

Obadiah Stains cannot get the Arc Reactor, and so builds the Iron Monger suit, which is a bigger, meaner Iron Man suit.

There is a fight. Iron Man wins. “I am Iron Man”, roll credits.

Oh, and both those films have a woman in there somewhere whose purpose is to look pretty and stare longingly into the camera, or something...

So there you go: Thor will have either Mjöllnir or the fact that he’s Odin’s first born and Loki will want to take that for himself, but he can’t, so he’ll summon up some beastie or something that Thor’ll beat up; and Captain America will have the Super Soldier Serum, or the location of the president or something that some Nazi or other will want so they send the Red Skull after him.

And both of them will have some woman in there somewhere, and she’ll look nice and be mostly pointless.

There you go, I’ve saved you the trouble of going to see those movies.

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“Well that’s a bit pessimistic of you, isn’t it Kev?”

Yes, yes it is. But let’s not forget that none of us will be going to see these films for their stories, will we? I’m not saying that the films won’t be fun. They most certainly will, they’ll be loud and obnoxious and they’ll spawn at least one meme each... Just like Hulk and Iron Man... (Well, less so with Hulk... “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry was a sort of meme already, but hay, Hulk was their first try.) I’m just throwing this little moan out there because I’ve pretty much lost faith in Hollywood screenwriters, And this is week 2 of a chronic onset of insomnia which has me a little bitchy right now, 'k? and I’m putting this prophesy forward to see if Hollywood will prove me wrong.


It won’t, though.

Cheers,

Kev.

You need a better hobby.

Also, Mariano Rivera's throwing motion is pretty much the same every time, but it works well enough. If you want to bitch about formulaic movies, bitch about the ones that use consistently shitty formulas (romantic comedies, for instance).

Point taken...

Formulas arn't a bad thing... And it's pretty impossible to get away from them but that doesn't mean they have to be so fucking bland all the time...

Take Deep Rising, it's a monster movie that runs along with a great checklist of monster movie tropes, gleefully ticking them all off as it goes on.

It gets so absurd in its following of the rules that at the point in the film when the monster is explained, this expposition is given, for no reason whatsoever, by a nerdy, business entrepreneur. Who, somehow, is perfectly capable of identifying the monster by it's Latin name, before giving a bare-bones description of deep sea gigantism.

There is no reason whatsoever as to why that character is able to identify the creature, or have any knowledge about it. He just happens to be the only character with glasses at the time (because glasses= intelligence) But it doesn't matter, because the film is too busy having fun to care, as is its audience. (Or me, at least)

It's when films are lazy about the application of this formula that it irks me. Recently I watched the Final Destination Trilogy. Here's a trick, if you have a long evening free, watch Final Destination 1 & 2 back to back. Final Destination 2 is like a fucking tracing of its prequel, clumsily coloured in with a big thick crayon in the form of ludicrous dialogue linking it to the first film.

Just to highlight how stupid the film is, the tagline on the boxart reads: "You can't cheat death twice." This statement floating over the only carryover character of the first film, who, by the end of that first film, had cheated death three times already.

I suppose it's the same reason we all get narked off at badfic in a way. There's just no reason for lazyness.

But, yeah, I am feeling particularly bitchy at the moment, all I really wanna do is get drunk and chill out for a bit...

I agree that there's a fair bit of fill-in-the-boxes when a lot of superhero movies are made, but your comparison of The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man seems to be reaching a bit to me. In particular, Stane didn't need to fight Stark to get the arc reactor; he had already taken it to power the Iron Monger suit. Also, Iron Man is an origin story whereas The Incredible Hulk opens with Banner already being the Hulk.

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And both of them will have some woman in there somewhere, and she’ll look nice and be mostly pointless.

You realize this describes at least 50% of all action movies?

You could apply that formula to just about every superhero or action film ever made. Doesn't have any bearing on whether the movie itself is gonna be good (or at least entertaining).

I'm not trying to claim that I'm the first person to spot that formula.

Nor am I trying to say that the application of formulas is a bad thing.

What I am saying is that I predict these two films will be examples of the laziest applications of these formulas. Which will be a shame...

But then, hoping for a decent comic book movie is kinda like hoping for a decent video game movie... It ain't gonna happen. Besides, we know what happens when someone tries to make an 'intelligent' superhero movie.

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And both of them will have some woman in there somewhere, and she’ll look nice and be mostly pointless.

You realize this describes at least 50% of all action movies?

So far as the depiction of women goes in action movies, This should stand for nearer 90% of them... And those other 10% are insane, so don't qualify as 'proper' women.

Comic book movie=/=superhero movie. There are plenty of well-regarded films based on non-superhero comic books - often animated ones like Persepolis and various stuff from Japan. I would also argue that plenty of perfectly decent superhero movies exist - it's nowhere near as bad a genre as video game movies.

It's apocryphal that there are only nine plots, right? Boy Meets Girl, The Hidden Prince, stuff like that. What you're referring to the is the basic use of the MacGuffin: somebody needs something that someone else has. It's not just superhero movies; practically every story has something similar that drives the conflict. I think you're over-generalizing.

Also, comparing the Hulk movie and Iron Man? That's sort of apples-and-oranges, isn't it? In fact, Iron Man is a prior which could stand to argue in either of these movies' favor; nobody expected a film about an often-annoying jerk in a robot suit to be anything good, but it surprised quite a few people.

I admit that Thor and Cap are sort of . . . well, bottom-of-the-barrel heroes, as far as movies are concerned. There's loads of potential for it to go horribly wrong. But arguing that they're going to fail because they'll likely follow a formula is missing the point, I think. Use of a formula doesn't matter so much as what you do with that formula. Or, as my brothers always say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

That should always be followed by "Without proper use and maintenance, it'll fucking break."

Wasn't Jorge Luis Borges that said that there were only four plots ever? For the record: a love story between two characters, a love story between three characters, a fight for power, and a journey.

Your strokes are so broad that too many action series would fit right in - mainly because nearly all of them are fights for power.

The formula doesn't apply to some other superhero movies around, I believe you're on to something about Thor and Captain America. It's very likely their movies will revolve around possession of Mjolnir and the super soldier formula respectively.

(I always felt that the first Hulk movie was really strange, as if the plot threads about Ross/the army and Banner's father were supposed to be separate movies. I suppose it's the unfamiliarity of having the formula applied twice over the same plot?)