"Do you like Superhero movies?" Topic

I don't.
Now, let's see how many "other" choices end up in the Poll. 🙄

I like the good ones.

It's not the subject, it's the execution.

Yes but sadly very few follow the timeline established in the comic books.
So many changes to origins.

No.

The best, by the way, is The Incredibles. Hands down. Anybody who claims they don't like that is either just being contrary to be contrary, or has issues I can't comprehend.

Not particularly.

Only those I recall from my childhood, without the nostalgia element I find them a bit silly. That and a bit of respect for originals, I find Taika Waititi's handling of them sickening, and now won't watch any directed by him.

The only really good one has been the one that made fun of the genre, "Mystery Men." Like "Galaxy Quest," both an homage and a pastiche.

Not really, apart from Superman and Batman.

About as much as I like "science fiction movies" or "war movies" or "Gokudō movies".

Parzival nailed it.

Not any more. I did some early on but they got so routine plot wise IMHO
Paul

I did, but early on I grasped a vital consideration that I knew would be their inevitable downfall. I chose to call it the rule of "7."

For a story to "work" there had to be a compelling Cadre of core players. 6 or 7 plus 1 villain worked. Below that needed a very compelling single core character. Above that the screen time diluted the characters to walk on.

Of course there are "inscrutable" variables. Neither Josstice League nor Justice League really work for different reasons.

No.

No.

Some of them.

What Parzival said. They can be very hit or miss and are over saturated.

Really tired of them. This has become especially true since they took the hero out of the story and made them all so unlikable.

Occasionally. Mostly I find them full of SMASH, CRASH, BOOM and that tends to get old after awhile.

Yes, mostly, getting a bit fatigued…

Most anything from the last millennium, I couldn't take seriously.

I kvetch far less about changes, and more about story-robbing changes.

I DO miss a few things, like a man who requires a stick to get around becoming Thor. A fantasy I could use now…

Doug

I guess it's "not my genre." I have seen a few but haven't really kept up.

I liked Spiderman (the one with Toby Maguire), Iron Man (the first one, with Robert Downey Jr.), and Batman Begins (maybe the only Christopher Nolan movie I've enjoyed).

Yes, they're mindless action movies with a hint of a plot in one of the many multiverses. Fun stuff.

No. But I occaisionally watch them.

Other than Dark Knight & The Deadpools, I loathe them.

Less and less as I can only take so much. Nothing really new now now.

Let's not forget that the Marvel and DC "canon" were monthly comic books ( a friend who is a serious collector called them "funny books") which needed a new complete story every issue. Occasionally there was a multi issue arc.
Then they migrated to "graphic novels". In other words, larger more expensive funny books.
If anyone cares, last year Captain America ended the issue by declaring "Hail Hydra". 🙄

I would never be so impolite as to tell Scarlett or the Chrisses that the plots are dumb. But let's be honest.
Superhero movies are outrageously expensive and based on churned out rubbish plots.

I'm with Parzival: some I like, some I don't. This is true for me in most genres. As a general rule, action/adventure and romantic comedies, I set the bar fairly low, and most "cape" movies are action/adventure. For straight romance and horror, my bar is pretty high--pretty much Austen for romance and Hell House may be the only straight horror I have and watch. Comedies and musicals fall somewhere in between

I don't like them. There's zero risk to the characters and you know that eventually they'll end up on top which means no real tension in the movie.

Hey LAscaris, you need to watch "The Boys". Not all "super heroes" end up on top in that series!!

No.

But let's be honest. Superhero movies are outrageously expensive and based on churned out rubbish plots.

Instead of starting with an invalid rhetorical framing device, we could use … I don't know … facts instead?

If we use roughly $90 USD–150 million as the "1917/Dunkirk cost," we get a lot of superhero movies.

Movie Approx. Budget
Batman Begins ~$150M
The Dark Knight ~$185M (just above the range)
Logan ~$97M
Deadpool ~$58M (below the range)
Deadpool 2 ~$110M
Shazam! ~$90–100M
Birds of Prey ~$82–100M
Blue Beetle ~$104M
The Crow ~$23M (about $50 USDM adjusted for inflation)
Chronicle ~$15M
Kick-Ass ~$30M
Hellboy ~$66M
Hellboy II: The Golden Army ~$85M
Unbreakable ~$75M
The Rocketeer ~$40M (roughly $90 USDM+ in today's dollars)

Or if we compare blockbuster films across genres:

Franchise Typical production budget
MCU/DC superhero ~$180–300M
Avatar ~$250–460M
Star Wars ~$200–400M
Mission: Impossible (recent) ~$250–400M
Pirates of the Caribbean ~$225–380M
Jurassic World ~$170–265M
LOTR ~$180
Hobbit ~$230
Modern Star Trek ~$200M
ST The Motion Picture ~$180M (adjusted)
ST TOS remaining movies ~$60M (adjusted)

Without a definition of "rubbish", I can't critique the other point (though when leading with "Let's be honest." there is no likely intent for honest dialogue.)

But in terms of movies with simple plotlines:

Will Rick help Ilsa? (Casablanca)
Will Brody kill the shark? (Jaws)
Will Kane stand alone? (High Noon)
Will Ripley survive? (Alien)
Will Ethan find Debbie? (The Searchers)
Will the jurors reach the right verdict? (12 Angry Men)
Will Eric finish what he came back to do? (The Crow)

In general, no.
I have seen four of the Batman films in the theatre. Batman (1989), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), The Batman (2022). I have seen the Suicide Squad, though are they Super Heros? In all cases I was with someone who wanted to see the films. I didn't like Suicide Squad, but I thought the four Batman films were good to pretty good.
I have seen bits or parts of many of the Marvel Universe films as my nephew loves them. They all pretty much seem the same and I don't care for them. So in general, I do not like Super Hero films

Sure. If they are well written and acted. Why close your mind to any type of movie that is well written and acted? To say all comic book movies are garbage is nonsensical. To say all comic books are garbage is close minded. Have you read them all? Some comics are profound. Some are crap. It's like all things.

Next you'll tell me all historical movies are garbage because some are not worth seeing.

Next you'll tell me all historical movies are garbage because some are not worth seeing.

🙄
Ah, the logical fallacies are strong with this one!
I shall leave the exact one as an exercise for the student.

I've seen very few, and I don't recall particularly liking any.

Of course, I generally dislike movies and superheroes, so this is no big surprise.

(I refuse to be too concerned about youngsters' attention spans as long as they can sit through 90+ minute movies and enjoy the experience.)

"90% of everything is crud."— Sturgeon's Law

The bulk of *all* movies are bad. The bulk of all literature is also bad. The bulk of all art is bad. The bulk of all miniatures painting is bad.
(Can you see a trend here?)

The irony is that most comic books are based (even if unintentionally) on the Epic Hero formula— an unlikely person emerges through tragedy to stand up against the odds and bring peace and freedom to his world.

Superman— his homeworld explodes, killing not only his entire family, but his entire species.
Batman— as a child, his parents are brutally murdered before his eyes. He goes into exile, far away from his home, to become who he needs to be to right the wrong of their deaths and bring justice to his world (Gotham).
Spider-man— His momentary selfishness results in the murder of his uncle by a man Peter could have stopped. From this tragedy, and amid the struggles of a low-income existence, he rises to meet the great, self-sacrificing responsibility towards others he now realizes he has.

And we can go on. The arc is there, especially as other mediums become involved. It's the Hero With a Thousand Faces.

What the heck did you think Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid are, and all the Greek and Roman myths are, if not superhero stories?

That classic, wired-into-our-systems idea is inherent to the greatest literature of mankind— but it's also in the worst. It's everywhere. When it's done well, it's exceptional, no matter what genre, medium, or artistic effort it appears as. When it's not, it at least has a lot of company.

It depends -

Superman – meh
batman – generally yeah
Wonder woman – yes
Captain America – no
Hulk – no
Thor – mostly
Deadpool – yes, no, no
Wolverine – yes
Spiderman – some
Captain Marvel – first yes, second really no
suicide squad+ yes
Guardian of the galaxy – yes
Fantastic 4 – no, only silver surfer, yes except the end, curates egg
Flash – yes
Iron man – yes
Venom – yes, no, yes

…ya see it sort of depends….

No.

Ah, the logical fallacies are strong with this one!
I shall leave the exact one as an exercise for the student.

In rhetoric, it's called the "Charity Failure".

That is, in response to the OFM's post, just because the ORM commits the rhetorical failures of Presumption, Performative Signaling, Overgeneralizing, Hasty Generalization, Category Error, and Bare Assertion (at least), we should not assume he would commit the same errors for any other genre of movies.

The correct form of the counter is the Stress Test, casting the assertions in the context of another subject to see if they still make sense. This is done as a question, not an assertion. Commmon in rhetoric, philosophy (the Socratic Method is based on it), law, and operations analysis.

"But let's be honest. Superhero movies are outrageously expensive and based on churned out rubbish plots."

All of them, OFM? Every single one? But even then
1) They're not more expensive to SEE. At most, they're more expensive to PRODUCE. But that's not your problem unless you're a major Disney or Warner stockholder.
2) As noted above, there are a lot of plots which might be called "rubbish." Are all such movies condemed to the outer darkness? (Personally, I have no idea what constitutes a "rubbish" plot. Simple? Convoluted? Inconsistent? Concerned with trash disposal? For me, it's very poor word choice.)

Is John Wick a superhero? If so, then yes

Is John Wick a superhero?

This is an interesting genre question.

My answer comes from the GURPS Supers book. They have a thing called a "supernormal". So they distinguish between high point-value units with various physics defying powers and high point-value units with just too many different things at too high a capability.

Whether your play GURPS or not (I haven't for a while), I think the distinction has merit. A person could have olympic gold-medal performance in a sport. Or a few related ones. But not 30 different ones. And expert domain level knowledge in 30 wildly different topics. And every wilderness/survival skill you can name. And so on…

If you accept the idea, I would say John Wick is a supernormal.

But the term does have "super" in front of it (and comes from a superhero-focused reference). So, supernormals are a sub-genre of superhero?

Mixed bag. Some good, many average, some bad, some garbage.

I thought the Avengers franchise got better as they progressed and even killed some super heroes off.
First Deadpool surprised me. Pretty good. 2nd not as much.
Most of DC bad, except the first two Batman with Christian Bale. The original Superman, it started the genre.
Some of the Spider-Man movies were not bad. Casting Tom Holland was a good idea. First one to really fit the comic book character.

I could go on, but won't.

I do get aggravated when the characters portrayed in the movies are not the same as in the original Comicbooks.

Some examples:

Mary Jane Watson should be a red haired white woman.
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Sam does an excellent job. Good actor. But Nick Fury was a white man. Would we have Tom Cruise play T'Challa? He#l No!
Taskmaster in Black Window was portrayed by a woman, when he was male mercenary Tony Masters. Actually the whole character was flip flopped around.

Not an issue I'm sure, if you didn't know the comics. But a pet peeve of mine.

Speaking of Tom Cruise. As Jack Reacher? I like Tom, but he ain't the Jack Reacher of the books, by a long shot.

Guardians of the Galaxy are all pretty good -lots to like in the genre. But yeah, Sturgeon's Law.