5 ms·

Your last point has been exactly my sticking point with most/all of these films. We went as a family to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, and about halfway through,

Your last point has been exactly my sticking point with most/all of these films. We went as a family to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, and about halfway through, my then-7-year-old son asked me when it would be over. It's just too much overstimulation, far too little plot. Star Wars: Rogue One was an identical film experience.

asark 7y ago
Age of Ultron's probably the worst offender in the series for—call it the Man of Steel effect, where there's a 20-minute (or longer...) "final fight" and I just wanted to take a nap by maybe the 5min mark. Almost all of them do it a little, though, even Guardians 2. The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time. Rogue One was a frustrating near-miss. Leaning into genre tropes adjacent to those that were such a part of Star Wars (the original gigantic genre-pastiche film) was such a good idea, and man, it almost worked. I think they just didn't quite have enough confidence in that idea and hedged their bets too much, and of course couldn't resist doing the Interminably Long Gigantic Big Explosions Action Scene. That aside, the fleet arriving and immediate aftermath of that is maybe the only time any of the new movies have given me childlike "Star Wars Feels" like several of the moments in the original trilogy do, so there's that.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Rogue One was the only recent franchise blockbuster that came close to having a soul. All the others seem to be a formulaic blend of running, shouting, shooting, CGI explodium, cartoon villains of astounding power and limited emotional depth, wisecracks™, on-the-nose moralising, and fresh-out-of-the-can sentiment. But these movies sell. More thoughtful slower movies don't. It's a feedback loop. The studios pander to teen/young adult audiences, older audiences stay away, and the movies become younger, teenier, and less and less distinctive.
  - mav3rick 7y ago
    Loved rogue one.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  > The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time. It's because it's interrupted. It has 30s of that, then it stops, have a minute of slower scenes, and then go for another 30s of action. It's probably cheaper too.
  - asark 7y ago
    It also does a very good job of flowing from one character moment to another. A fried of mine noticed something I hadn't, recently: "this is just a scene of some Avengers doing team-up stuff in some combination, then one of a single Avenger personally beating Loki, repeat until every Avenger has beaten Loki, culminating in the Hulk". That could be dull but, crucially, each of these differs from the others, whether by significantly varying the setting, or the way the characters fight, or the sort of bad guy they're fighting. It's also excellent at both short and long term setup and payoff, at least in minor ways, several times completing such an arc in a single scene—which is what you're supposed to do in just about any scene if you can swing it, of course, but many filmmakers seem to forget that, especially once the CGI explosions start. It may be paint by numbers but at least they, you know, actually paint every number, as if they are, if nothing else, very good and professional number-painters. Contrast, say, Man of Steel, where it's mostly just one or the other of two dudes getting smashed or laser-blasted through/onto something hard, over, and over, and over. Or Age of Ultron, which has more variety and setup/payoff than Man of Steel (not a high bar to top), but is still way worse—clumsier and more slapdash, might be a good way to put it—than Avengers. [EDIT] and yes of course you're very much correct, the pacing of the final fight in Avengers is part of the variety that keeps it from becoming a slog. The plotting and editing work on that whole sequence is damn impressive. It could probably be the main subject of a whole class on modern action storytelling in film—if you for some reason can't just use the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road as your key work instead.

asark 7y ago

Age of Ultron's probably the worst offender in the series for—call it the Man of Steel effect, where there's a 20-minute (or longer...) "final fight" and I just wanted to take a nap by maybe the 5min mark. Almost all of them do it a little, though, even Guardians 2. The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time. Rogue One was a frustrating near-miss. Leaning into genre tropes adjacent to those that were such a part of Star Wars (the original gigantic genre-pastiche film) was such a good idea, and man, it almost worked. I think they just didn't quite have enough confidence in that idea and hedged their bets too much, and of course couldn't resist doing the Interminably Long Gigantic Big Explosions Action Scene. That aside, the fleet arriving and immediate aftermath of that is maybe the only time any of the new movies have given me childlike "Star Wars Feels" like several of the moments in the original trilogy do, so there's that.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Rogue One was the only recent franchise blockbuster that came close to having a soul. All the others seem to be a formulaic blend of running, shouting, shooting, CGI explodium, cartoon villains of astounding power and limited emotional depth, wisecracks™, on-the-nose moralising, and fresh-out-of-the-can sentiment. But these movies sell. More thoughtful slower movies don't. It's a feedback loop. The studios pander to teen/young adult audiences, older audiences stay away, and the movies become younger, teenier, and less and less distinctive.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  Loved rogue one.
marcosdumay 7y ago
> The first Avengers film is notable for having precisely that sort of scene but being engaging nearly the entire time. It's because it's interrupted. It has 30s of that, then it stops, have a minute of slower scenes, and then go for another 30s of action. It's probably cheaper too.
- asark 7y ago
  It also does a very good job of flowing from one character moment to another. A fried of mine noticed something I hadn't, recently: "this is just a scene of some Avengers doing team-up stuff in some combination, then one of a single Avenger personally beating Loki, repeat until every Avenger has beaten Loki, culminating in the Hulk". That could be dull but, crucially, each of these differs from the others, whether by significantly varying the setting, or the way the characters fight, or the sort of bad guy they're fighting. It's also excellent at both short and long term setup and payoff, at least in minor ways, several times completing such an arc in a single scene—which is what you're supposed to do in just about any scene if you can swing it, of course, but many filmmakers seem to forget that, especially once the CGI explosions start. It may be paint by numbers but at least they, you know, actually paint every number, as if they are, if nothing else, very good and professional number-painters. Contrast, say, Man of Steel, where it's mostly just one or the other of two dudes getting smashed or laser-blasted through/onto something hard, over, and over, and over. Or Age of Ultron, which has more variety and setup/payoff than Man of Steel (not a high bar to top), but is still way worse—clumsier and more slapdash, might be a good way to put it—than Avengers. [EDIT] and yes of course you're very much correct, the pacing of the final fight in Avengers is part of the variety that keeps it from becoming a slog. The plotting and editing work on that whole sequence is damn impressive. It could probably be the main subject of a whole class on modern action storytelling in film—if you for some reason can't just use the entirety of Mad Max: Fury Road as your key work instead.