3 ms·

Superhero movies are mostly throwaway pop culture. No one is going to mention Iron Man 2 and Spiderman Reboot 4 in the same sentence as Goodfellas or Cape Fear

Superhero movies are mostly throwaway pop culture. No one is going to mention Iron Man 2 and Spiderman Reboot 4 in the same sentence as Goodfellas or Cape Fear in 30 years, to name a couple excellent Scorsese films. Honestly they won't even be mentioned at all, in any context. That being said, I saw my first superhero movie in several years recently when I saw The Joker. That was a truly excellent film! I believe it was excellent because it was not throwaway pop culture but a disturbing character study based on dark source material that happened to be in the comic book universe. If more superhero movies were like that I would pay to see them.

Udik 7y ago
> I saw my first superhero movie in several years recently when I saw The Joker The Joker (whatever its qualities) is definitely not a superhero movie.
- krapp 7y ago
  The Joker is, by definition, a superhero movie because it takes place within the universe of a DC property. It (re)tells the origin story of one of the most famous comic book villains of all time. It may be stretching the boundaries of the genre, but it's still in the genre.
  - Udik 7y ago
    We might disagree forever, however this is my argument. What connects the Joker movie to the Batman universe are essentially three names: the Joker's himself, Bruce Wayne, and Gotham City. And names are labels: you can stick the label of a bottle of wine on a bottle of coke, but it remains a bottle of coke: it's sweet, fizzy, and won't make you drunk. If you take a Harry Potter novel and rename him as Batman, his enemy Voldemort as Joker and Hogwarts as Gotham School, it doesn't make it into a DC superhero story. If you take a fantasy novel and replace kingdoms with planets and castles and horses with starships, it doesn't make it into a science fiction story- despite Star Wars being labeled as one.

Udik 7y ago

> I saw my first superhero movie in several years recently when I saw The Joker The Joker (whatever its qualities) is definitely not a superhero movie.

krapp 7y ago
The Joker is, by definition, a superhero movie because it takes place within the universe of a DC property. It (re)tells the origin story of one of the most famous comic book villains of all time. It may be stretching the boundaries of the genre, but it's still in the genre.
- Udik 7y ago
  We might disagree forever, however this is my argument. What connects the Joker movie to the Batman universe are essentially three names: the Joker's himself, Bruce Wayne, and Gotham City. And names are labels: you can stick the label of a bottle of wine on a bottle of coke, but it remains a bottle of coke: it's sweet, fizzy, and won't make you drunk. If you take a Harry Potter novel and rename him as Batman, his enemy Voldemort as Joker and Hogwarts as Gotham School, it doesn't make it into a DC superhero story. If you take a fantasy novel and replace kingdoms with planets and castles and horses with starships, it doesn't make it into a science fiction story- despite Star Wars being labeled as one.