Thoughts & Things

Superhero Movies

I love superhero movies. I think most people do these days. At least, everyone in my nerdy little circle of friends seems to love them. When I start to feel superhero burnout, I simply see another superhero movie; there are so many good ones being pumped out these days that it's hard to truly get sick of them.

I went to see Spiderman the other day at the movies, and it was fantastic. It was refreshing to see a Spiderman movie about Peter Parker coming into his own, rather than another Spiderman origin story. This got me to thinking about sharing some of my thoughts as a reader and a writer, as seeing a new superhero movie usually gets my wheels turning.

As a writer, I think superhero movies are a fascinating thing to examine. As they are so popular, I think it's important to look at what makes them work, and compare it to the superhero movies that don't work, or even just to particular scenes that don't work. Sometimes it is about story or character consistency, as people are more likely to enjoy seeing the story and characters maintained as they should be, rather than making changes that make no sense. Length also seems to play a big part, as you can look at overly long superhero movies that did less well, and see how that contributed. I think there's an additional ease in that people already care about the characters, but it presents its own challenges in that the screenwriters need to make the audience care about a character they might already be bored with or dislike.

As a reader, I love seeing the stories that I have read and loved come to life on the big screen. It's interesting to see where they are going to take each story, as most of the major comic characters have so many variants. I only wish more of my favourites were adapted for TV and movie. In my lifetime, we've had six live action Spiderman movies, and an animated series, but we haven't had a single Ms Marvel or Howard the Duck. This is without getting into the non-superhero stuff I would love to see adapted for the screen, big or small.

I think it's important to have a blast watching these fun movies, but they're also worth giving a thought about.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Seventy-Two. Eight days of leave taken total.)