why I stopped watching
These are the Marvel superhero movies, with the ones I've seen in bold:
X-Men - 2000
Spider-Man - 2002
X2 - 2003
Hulk - 2003
Spider-Man 2 - 2004
Fantastic Four - 2005
X-Men: The Last Stand - 2006
Spider-Man 3 - 2007
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - 2007
Iron Man - 2008
The Incredible Hulk - 2008
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 2009
Iron Man 2 - 2010
Thor - 2011
X-Men: First Class - 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger - 2011
The Avengers - 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man - 2012
Iron Man 3 - 2013
The Wolverine - 2013
Thor: The Dark World - 2013
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 2014
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 2014
X-Men: Days of Future Past - 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy - 2014
Avengers: Age of Ultron - 2015
Ant-Man - 2015
Fantastic Four - 2015
Deadpool - 2016
Captain America: Civil War - 2016
X-Men: Apocalypse - 2016
Why did I start watching them?
- Superheroes are fun!
- Superpowers can make for really interesting action scenes (rather than the kicking and shooting that's all that's available in most action scenes, Lara Croft on a bungee notwithstanding).
- I love somewhat angsty, finding-your-identity stories.
- I love somewhat angsty, looking-for-redemption stories.
- I love silly costumes and silly names.
Why did I stop watching them?
- There started to be too many plotlines per movie. (For instance: Spiderman 3 and X-Men 3.)
- There stopped being silly costumes and silly names. What is the point of having superheroes if they don't embrace the silly?
- The movies started prioritising as follows:
(1) snark
(2) action scenes
(3) plot
(See: Avengers, which had an immense focus on Tony Stark snarking at Captain America, action scenes that were entertaining enough, but a bit forgettable, and a plotline that... vaguely held together.)
I want to see:
(1) plot
(2) action scenes
(3) snark
(X-Men, for instance. Which had two snarky lines - that were awesome - and some really interesting plot and action. Or Spiderman 2, which had incredible action scenes, and a plot that totally held together.)
And the main reason:
There is just too much continuity between movies. To understand Avengers, I had to have seen at least four previous movies (not a problem, because I had). To understand the following movies, I had to keep seeing all the following movies. They all build on each other! Which is really annoying, because the movies have a totally different feel from each other.
I decided early on that I wasn't so interested in the Thor movies - and yet, they still form part of the overall plot that I'm supposed to be familiar with.
It's much more frustrating than with a television show. Sure, watching all of Buffy is essential to properly understanding later episodes of Buffy - but this is more like having to watch Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse in order to understand later episodes of Buffy. That's too much to ask.
It may be just me. But the Marvel movies have lost at least one viewer - which is a real shame.
The conversation's happening over at Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment there using OpenID. (
comments so far)
X-Men - 2000
Spider-Man - 2002
X2 - 2003
Hulk - 2003
Spider-Man 2 - 2004
Fantastic Four - 2005
X-Men: The Last Stand - 2006
Spider-Man 3 - 2007
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - 2007
Iron Man - 2008
The Incredible Hulk - 2008
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 2009
Iron Man 2 - 2010
Thor - 2011
X-Men: First Class - 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger - 2011
The Avengers - 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man - 2012
Iron Man 3 - 2013
The Wolverine - 2013
Thor: The Dark World - 2013
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 2014
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 2014
X-Men: Days of Future Past - 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy - 2014
Avengers: Age of Ultron - 2015
Ant-Man - 2015
Fantastic Four - 2015
Deadpool - 2016
Captain America: Civil War - 2016
X-Men: Apocalypse - 2016
Why did I start watching them?
- Superheroes are fun!
- Superpowers can make for really interesting action scenes (rather than the kicking and shooting that's all that's available in most action scenes, Lara Croft on a bungee notwithstanding).
- I love somewhat angsty, finding-your-identity stories.
- I love somewhat angsty, looking-for-redemption stories.
- I love silly costumes and silly names.
Why did I stop watching them?
- There started to be too many plotlines per movie. (For instance: Spiderman 3 and X-Men 3.)
- There stopped being silly costumes and silly names. What is the point of having superheroes if they don't embrace the silly?
- The movies started prioritising as follows:
(1) snark
(2) action scenes
(3) plot
(See: Avengers, which had an immense focus on Tony Stark snarking at Captain America, action scenes that were entertaining enough, but a bit forgettable, and a plotline that... vaguely held together.)
I want to see:
(1) plot
(2) action scenes
(3) snark
(X-Men, for instance. Which had two snarky lines - that were awesome - and some really interesting plot and action. Or Spiderman 2, which had incredible action scenes, and a plot that totally held together.)
And the main reason:
There is just too much continuity between movies. To understand Avengers, I had to have seen at least four previous movies (not a problem, because I had). To understand the following movies, I had to keep seeing all the following movies. They all build on each other! Which is really annoying, because the movies have a totally different feel from each other.
I decided early on that I wasn't so interested in the Thor movies - and yet, they still form part of the overall plot that I'm supposed to be familiar with.
It's much more frustrating than with a television show. Sure, watching all of Buffy is essential to properly understanding later episodes of Buffy - but this is more like having to watch Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse in order to understand later episodes of Buffy. That's too much to ask.
It may be just me. But the Marvel movies have lost at least one viewer - which is a real shame.
The conversation's happening over at Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment there using OpenID. (
comments so far)