How The MCU Killed Cinema

Disney are no strangers to setting precedents within the realm of fictional media, creating the first ever commercially viable animated movie in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", having both the best-selling 2D cel animated feature as well as the most successful 3D venture of all time; in both versions of The Lion King.

But when they ran rampant on the landscape of media during the late 2000s and early 2010s - acquiring juggernaut level franchises in Star Wars, Marvel and The Simpsons - each of these franchises went through a renaissance and were revitalised, in a manner that was somewhat ironically, unprecedented. 

While the new iterations of Star Wars were mostly critical darlings - which certainly alludes to some veracious corruption within that department of the industry - the majority of cinema-goers, especially those that grew up with the unparalleled and vastly endeared original trilogy of entries, regard them to be nothing more than an indecent cash grab with some seriously sinisterly greedy overtones attached to them. 

The Simpsons is a series that encapsulates the 1990s and everything from the style to substance harkens back to this period of time, some of the storylines feel outdated, the show has been in stagnation since the early 2000s and overall with its steep decline only roughly after 10 years of its debut, tied with its dwindling quality, its better years are definitely behind it. For whatever reason, people still view it with the same rose-tinted glasses they did back in 1991, or even 2001. 

Is it possible that the reason these two IP's in particular haven't been as successful as the titular one because of the benefactor of it having no prior nostalgia, buzz nor allegiance in the department of this visual medium?

That's not to say Marvel have never had a small screen or a silver screen outing before, as a matter of fact, it's likely that most people don't even realise that Marvel have been making big-budget movies since the bygone era of 80s cinema (1986 to be exact). But before playing their hand with a theatrical adaptation of "Howard The Duck" (of all the intellectual property's at their disposal and this was the one they pursued), Marvel created a serialised sequence of short films based on one of their now most beloved characters which predates even the company itself. 1944's Captain America, which when melded into a single movie, matches the length, but not exactly scope of some of the more extensive entries in the catalogue of modern Marvel's vehemently endured cinematic universe.

Howard the Duck, however, in collaboration with the very well-established Lucasfilm - as none other than George Lucas himself pitched and perpetuated the film - was, as you can imagine, with a title like that and the main protagonist being, well, a duck, a transfiguration from comic to comically bad movie that was not only unequivocally ill-received - it was essentially a hit with a capital S. After receiving a total of seven Razzie (Golden Raspberry Award) nominations and attaining four of them in the process, Howard The Duck was deemed both a critical and commercial bomb upon release and because of this, it wouldn't be another 12 years until Marvel had either the integrity, security or ingenuity to dip their toe back into a sea that relentlessly attempted to drown them time and time again, with the 1998 box-office smash-hit; "Blade". Making the company a sumptuous sum of money and allowing its nearing hiatus to be postponed for a few years, capitulating the movie industry with an inconsistent resurgence that gave birth to some classics but also excreted some real stinkers. 

The ineptitude in terms of fans of "Marvel's" knowledge is certainly foretelling when the majority of them don't even know of the existence of Howard as a character, not just in movie form. Admittedly, this applies predominantly to the newcomers, the casuals and the type of people that go to see a movie to forget life for a couple of hours and experience something outside the tedious minutiae of the mundanities of everyday life. There is nothing wrong with this. There's no need to be critical of people like this, but at the same time, whether or not they realise it, they're doing the film industry a massive disservice by repeatedly queuing up, month after month - albeit when the "pandemic" isn't in play - because not only is the market now egregiously over-saturated with a plethora of superhero properties, but it's almost monetized solely by Disney. 

It's a bit of a stretch to make the assumption that certain companies within this industry could be labelled evil, overzealous or even vilified. Most of them are just appropriating what's proprietary to them and vacillate between the lines of good and bad, because when all is said and done, they're just constructs in theory. 

The fundamental problem however though is that movies are now so watered down and devoid of any inkling of artistic vision that they almost feel like a parody of themself and that itself seems to be a growing trend within the zeitgeist currently. The fact that shows such as Rick and Morty, Community and films such as everything in the MCU's library exist, the countless, lifeless reiterations of classic IP's such as The Terminator, Alien, He-Man, Charlie's Angels, Ghostbusters etc. feel almost parodic on their own and, from the understanding of most people, this was not supposed to be the case. One of the main reasons for these franchises all flopping in the modern day is not because they're a reminder of a bygone era, but it is in fact - besides the pretentious moral "women can do anything" (which we already knew because of the existence of films such as Alien, The Terminator and every slasher film known to man) and "every ethnicity needs to represented" (which makes it feel more sardonic than anything) - that they're trying to emulate the success of the MCU by adopting the tried and tested, but very tired (and tired cannot be emphasized enough), formula. 

The formula goes like this:

• Apply the Hero's 12 steps. 
• Crack a lot of jokes, even, no wait, scratch that, ESPECIALLY, at the most serious moments in the films - which totally eliminates any sort of mood, threat or fear that SHOULD be encapsulated by the main antagonist. 
• Pander to the audience by showing a person of every ethnicity, gender and write them as pointlessly unnecessary characters, every time, without fail. 
• Watch the critical appraisal and the hard-earned money of people that deserve better come rolling in. 

Apparently, this is cinema now. This is modern-day cinema. Cinema in the 2021th year in the world's calendar. What happened to the days when we had beautifully crafted messages, wrapped up with care and passion from the people that made them rather than having everything sourced from one currency generating machine?

Metropolis was a masterpiece that came out 94 years ago and still remains influential as The Terminator one is. The Jazz Singer gave us sound when we couldn't hear, and that was way back in the exact same year. King Kong created most sfx techniques in 1933, it pioneered fantasy films, it's clear for all to see. Rosebud...rosebud, who can forget when a new lane was opened by one of the best scripts in Citizen Kane. 1958 was when we learnt there existed a condition called Vertigo, and from then until now, we all still know. 2001: A Space Odyssey showed us that there exists life beyond our own, possibly. The Exorcist was more horrific than the Vietnam war, which was taking place when this film had more outraged people with pitchforks. The Empire Struck Back in the middle of summer and the remainder of 1980 was definitely no bummer. While it may have been a different time, Do The Right Thing came out in 1989. Before ten years had passed, Titanic broke all records in 1997 and people said a lot about it, but they never complained. 

Now, think for a second, how many of these films would claim to be the same as anything else in the Library of Congress or UNESCO, where they all remain.

Please stop being blown away by the fancy tricks of artificial intelligence. Practical effects are subjectively more impressive and they don't keep anybody from achieving what they've worked so hard to get to. Every time you view one of these movies, you're basically screwing humanity and giving your funds to a big corporation that could certainly do without them.