I wondered about this recently. With so much going on, our society has meanwhile retreated into escapism. (I place STAR WARS in this same category.)
Hear, hear!
Films which are too dark for kids the comics were originally written for …Looks like the author is unfamiliar with the subject matter of the original comics.
I’m tired of them myself.
Just a symptom of Hollywood having no originality anymore.
The author must not be much of a comic-book fan, or they’d know that the comic books are often fairly dark themselves.
I like comic book movies generally. But lately, the trend has been to make them dark.
I think it worked for the first Batman (with Christian Bale), and the second (mainly because of Heath Ledger’s Joker). But I didn’t care for a darker Spider Man. And I don’t care for Emo Superman.
Not interested in Hard-R Deadpool.
Not interested in seeing Batman v Superman. Reviews say it has no joy.
I only watch Zatoichi films.
They quit making those when old Shintaro Katsu died, back in the 90s.
Well, I might watch a Clint Eastwood from time to time :)
I’m too stupid to pay attention to the world and watch movies...
I grew up in the 60s when Marvel Comics just started and were light years better than DC. However IMNSHO The Dark Knight is not only the best comic book movie ever, it’s one of the best movies ever.
I’m a Scrooge McDuck man, myself. Carl Barks was the greatest cartoonist ever.
Heroes, myths, sagas, etc. have always existed, from Classical Greece to Beowulf to the Lone Ranger.
Superheroes are merely the late 20th/early 21st century manifestation of same. They are the brain’s attempt to deal with dizzying contemporary scientific and technological advances. They were and are also a coping mechanism and/or a revenge fantasy in response to war, despotism, etc.
It may be a stretch to call Godzilla a superhero but he is obviously a mythical creature expressly created as a sort of anguished collective cry in response to the loss of WWII, the loss of empire and/or imperial infallibility and, of course, the very real terror of nuclear weapons on home soil. He has been called a stand-in for the US military.
For better or worse, Marvel took so-called teen alienation and growing pains (often little more than the product of postwar affluence and idleness) and made them the centerpiece of their heroes and books (Spider-Man, X-Men) as the 60s and 70s advanced and the kids reading them ate it up as opposed to a reclusive millionaire (Bruce Wayne) or a mild-mannered newspaper reporter (Clark Kent) they couldn’t identify with.
DC, on the other hand, were way behind on the introspection curve and still issuing the corny wham-boom-biff-kapow put-the-bank-robber-in-jail stuff.
Comics and derivative films are escapism just as westerns and musicals were. Some of the psychological torment hero-as-Hamlet stuff gets old as does the temptation to destroy cities, continents and planets via convincing high-res CGI in every film but the protagonist-antagonist narrative has never and will never really change.
Give up Captain America, Iron Man, Thor? Not hardly.
As for comic books.... yeah... I do not see the appeal for adults to buy them, but that is just me.
I call it “Daily Show Syndrome”. Everybody is just mired in stupid crap.
As a kid, I was not allowed by my parents to possess/read comic books. Couldn’t wait to visit my cousins who possessed a plethora of Archie comic books. My husband, I, and our three children enjoy watching Star Wars movies and The Walking Dead series. Have never read the comics. I have enjoyed reading BOOKS - an escapism of sorts. However, the stories are also adventures that someone else has shared...
For the most part, these movies do tend to take themselves too seriously, even when they go for the laughs. So I’d agree. Except.
The TV batman was kinda campy, and I liked it. Likewise the first Iron Man. Most of the Batmans are too convoluted to enjoy. Plus the stupid things are so dark (meaning filmed in the dark) and noisy.
I hated The Lone Ranger when I saw it first, expecting it to be something like what I grew up with. But the second time I saw it, I saw it did not intend to take itself seriously (Depp’s Tonto: “Did my name come up?) Really enjoyed it.
No self respecting adult should deem themselves the judge of MY choice of entertainment if I like seeing movies that, thanks to technology, can bring comics to life in a high quality fashion. I’ve waited decades for them to not be horrible.
A desperate plea from one whose parents threw away his first edition copies of all the Marvel and DC comics that would now be worth a fortune.......LOL!