It’s just been announced that Spider-Man will be involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seems that Sony is not happy with the current state of the franchise and will reboot it yet again in 2017 in a joint movie with Marvel Studios/Disney. Sony will still have the final say creatively, but surely Disney will have a major influence. With this new development, it’s probably a good time to evaluate the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole and consider what might happen in years to come.
While watching “Hunger Games: The Mockingjay, Part One,” my mind wandered. When Katniss Everdeen gets her new set of arrows (this is not a spoiler, is it?), some are explosive – “trick” arrows, similar to the ones used by Oliver Queen on Arrow or Hawkeye in The Avengers.
When these characters came to mind, I started to sense a pattern. In the 21st Century, people love archers: Legolas in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films; Green Arrow on both Arrow and Smallville; Hawkeye over at Marvel is experiencing great popularity both on the silver screen and in the pages of his own comic; Neytiri from James Cameron’s Avatar; Sterling Archer; Merida from Pixar’s Brave and Katniss offer girls positive role models, while Hanna maybe not so much. I think there’s also a girl who shoots arrows in the Narnia movies, but I’ve never seen those. I started to think about why these archers are so popular.
Warner Bros. has yet to capture the cinematic success of the Marvel movies with any of its properties other than Batman. And that’s because Batman is so close to being a Marvel character that if he killed people he’d be one.
All the WB knows how to do is Batman, which is why they’ve decided to throw him at the already ailing new Superman franchise to forgo the trouble of rebooting yet again, in a shamelessly blatant attempt to repackage the classic Frank Miller penned The Dark Knight Returns (a book which pretty much laid the foundation for the modern portrayal of Batman) and distract detractors of Man of Steel.
Breaking Bad is the best television show of the 21st century (so far). It managed to offer week after week of not only compelling stories, but enough symbolism and alternate character interpretations to keep even the most snobby English-Lit major interested, while distracting less intellectually focused viewers with instances of “bad ass” behavior.
Vince Gilligan used to write for The X-Files (in fact, Bryan Cranston appeared in the episode directly before the first episode Gilligan wrote) a show I haven’t watched regularly since the nineties, but proves to me that he has a lot of talent. He knows how to tell a good story, obviously. His real genius with Breaking Bad is in how he draws characters, especially television characters. On TV, people don’t really change. There is an illusion of change, but very little actually occurs.
One thing that’s immediately noticeable is that no one says anything is “cool” anymore. I understand that you will hear people say “that’s cool,” which would appear to contradict what I just said in the previous sentence, but you’re paying attention now and that’s good.
Coolness is a complex and elusive concept. People are commonly aware of the designations of “cool” versus “uncool,” but are not always certain how exactly to apply these distinctions. Is Justin Bieber cool? Lots of girls want to bang him; he drives flashy, expensive cars (and gets pulled over for speeding!); he vandalizes public and private property; and he’s overtly disrespectful to authority figures. He meets several qualifications for coolness, but saying Justin Bieber is cool is kind of like saying McDonald’s salads are healthy.
One thing that’s immediately noticeable is that no one says anything is “cool” anymore. I understand that you will hear people say “that’s cool,” which would appear to contradict what I just said in the previous sentence, but you’re paying attention now and that’s good.
Coolness is a complex and elusive concept. People are commonly aware of the designations of “cool” versus “uncool,” but are not always certain how exactly to apply these distinctions. Is Justin Bieber cool? Lots of girls want to bang him; he drives flashy, expensive cars (and gets pulled over for speeding!); he vandalizes public and private property; and he’s overtly disrespectful to authority figures. He meets several qualifications for coolness, but saying Justin Bieber is cool is kind of like saying McDonald’s salads are healthy.
The word “brony” has become so loaded over time that it’s hard to use without bringing up unfortunate connotations. I’d like to leave aside the more… colorful aspects of the group and stick with the loosest definition possible: a brony is an adolescent or adult male who watches and enjoys the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. (To answer your inevitable question: Yes, I have watched the show. I do think it is very clever and has a lot of crossover appeal. The quality declines after the first season, but if you can get past your “ew, cooties!” mindset, you might find something you enjoy.) The show is so popular with males that a female fan is almost unusual and strange. When someone brings up MLP, as a citizen of the internet, you just kind of assume it’s a guy. Just as, if someone is fanatical over Loki, it’s reasonable to think they’re probably a girl. It’s an intriguing phenomenon: whereas a girl liking superheroes is unconsciously viewed as “trading up,” a boy liking something meant for girls is automatically viewed as shameful.