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loopy777 · 7 months

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Yeah thats kinda the problem with following genres. Because they are living, breathing things that change, follow trends, rebel against trends, deconstruct their mediums, reconstruct their mediums, and are vastly different from decade to decade.

Thats one of the reasons the movie superhero craze is effectively over at this point. Just like Westerns, the market became oversaturated, but it's also become almost impossible to just watch superhero movies just on the face of them anymore. There is never going to be another superhero movie that isnt going to be affected, in one way or another, and judge to the entire infinity saga.

Superhero movies will now always be judged whether they are trying to recapture the feel of the previous MCU, is it rebelling against that, is it doing its own thing? Is it trying to deconstruct the formula Marvel set up? Is it a throwback?

We'll see more cycles as time goes on, just like the superhero golden age gave way to the silly silver age, the bronze age followed after that trying to be more serious, the dark ages took that idea and ran it into the ground, the following age came as a response to that, which in turn ended at one more day, qfter which it all just eventually began to permanently fall apart as the years went on, and readers as a whole left the medium for other pastures.

And thats just one medium and genre, all built on top of what came before in one way or another.

But in regards to MHA, its actually an interesting study in how different people can take something completely different from the same medium, because not everyone has been following the same things.

For example, you yourself noted that you thought of MHA as a reconstruction of the superhero genre.

I however, can tell thats not quite the case... Oh it certainly does reconstruct the Superhero genre, that part is absolutely true... But MHA is pretty much a very thorough deconstruction of all the many, many shonen series that followed in One Piece and Naruto's wake, that tried to copy them.

I wont repeat what i said about how OP unfortunately destroyed the way shonen handled death and injuries, but thats hardly where it ends.

Bakugo was originally imagined as this nice guy rival... Because thats what the series that followed after One Piece and Naruto did. As such, the way he instead went the completely different direction was a direct respone/challenge that entire idea.

Izuku being nervous and shy, but also reliant on a massive intellect rather than just massive physical combat talent was also a direct response to the countless stupid but confident shonen heroes that Dragon ball began, One Piece perfected, and so many other series has just produced bland, and very bad leads trying to mimic what Oda and Toriyama did.

Inko's entire existence and the fact she's still a part of her son's life is pretty much alien to the way the vast, vast majority of shonen handles parents, especially female parents by for all intents and purposes not being part of their kids lives, or more commonly just dead.

The mentor All Might being a proactive and active part of the story, and not dying midway through is again, pretty much the opposite of how shonen series does things. Killing off the obi-van/big good, is so standard in shonen that even One Piece, champion of never killing anyone, did it. And what few series does not, eventually just makes them completely useless to the narrative, as it's clear they never had any plans for how to handle said character surviving.

World building, and in universe politics, and how the setting worked is brought up front and explained from day one, and having characters lives being directly affected by it, is a response to series such as One Piece, Fairy Tail, and many others that gives the premise, but takes a long time before it really explains the powers that rule the world, in favor of character development.

The tournament arc ultimately ended up being completely meaningless in terms of rewards, and the hero didn't even win it, nor tie fighting his big rival. Needless to say, that's not how shonen lately tends to do it.

I could go on, but you get the gist. A LOT of how MHA is built is deliberately because HORI structured it that way, having learned from his orevious works, Barrage and Oumagadoki zoo. Both were completely bog standard shonen manga that while not bad, didn't really manage to attain actual success.

Zoo was a more episodic comedy manga with a supernatural element, that changed over to being a battle manga when that didn't pan out, then got canceled. Meanwhile, Barrage was a far, far more competently put together battle manga, that took all the tropes One Piece had popularized and used them to tell a story... That completely flopped, because while it was genuinely good, there wasn't much that made it stand out amongst the crowd of other shonen.

And so, when crafting MHA he did so with the mind set of telling a good story, while also deconstructing and then reconstructing so many of the shonen tropes that was popular in shonen as MHA was released.

Izuku was a genuinely wimpy, but kindhearted kid who wanted to be the most inspiring hero in the world, not the worlds strongest "insert whatever profession here" in a genre where powerful, but idiotic, and supremely ambitious anti-heroes like luffy that though had a good heart, was not exactly a traditional hero, reigned supreme, that was genuinely fresh, and had solid foundations to built a good character off of.

All Might was the great power of his world, but unlike One Piece's Whitebeard, the shadowy and in the background strongest pirate in the world, who's role was effectively to have the entire political status quo of the world disintegrate after he died, All Might's role was to be the Main characters mentor and friend who gave him advice, wasn't alway right, and would go on to lose the power that defined him and his world. Again, a subversion, but one with well planned foundations.

The world of Heroes is explained in very huge detaol from day one, unlike One piece and fairy tail, and so many others, including Barrage, because Hori knew from personal experience that trying to take your time on explaining the world could very, very easily backfire if the readers didnt get invested in it from day one.

All of this came together to create a very good deconstruction and reconstruction of the entire Shonen genre, which as you pointed out, also worked great as a reconstruction of a lot of the aspects that the superhero genre that Hori decided to set his world in, had forgotten or left behind for such nonsense as deals with the devil, multiverses, massive crossovers, abandoning of true heroics, and so on.

Its also telling that the one place where hori decided to just follow the standard Shonen formula of the day, Izuku relationship with his love interest Uraraka, is far and away the most boring part of the entire series.

Overall though, it managed to hit the homerun that is the best of two worlds. It managed to hit the world wide appeal that so many modern series sacrifices everything to appeal to just by being a good story, and it managed to appeal to japanese manga fans who were hungry for something else that was not just following in One Piece's or Naruto's footsteps.

The huge backlash the arcs post the war arc has gotten, is very much a further response to that, as the series that once prided itself on NOT playing all the shonen tropes straight, began to do exactly that, and is now in the middle of a drawn out, slog of a final that so, so, so many other shonen series had fallen victim to over the years.

Heh, don't tell my brother that the Deku/Uraraka romance is the most boring part. It's one of his favorite parts. He think it's criminal what an Uraraka figma is going for on the secondary market.

You have a good analysis of the ways MHA builds on the shonen genre, and I didn't mean to imply that it was exclusively drawing from superhero genre. As you note, there's a good fusion going on there, and I think that speaks to a larger point about genre in general- it can be strengthened by blending it with other genres, or at least lessons learned from other genres.

I think it's notable how controversial you've revealed to me the final battle to be, given its context in the shonen genre, and there's no specific equivalent in the superhero genre for me to draw on as an example. Superhero comics don't end- at least not outside AU graphic novels, and those largely all draw on The Dark Knight Returns for their formula, so they're more like a dark epilogue to superhero's story rather than a culmination. Superheroes can have final confrontations with an enemy or two in movie adaptations, but there's no "Final Battle of the Justice League" where all their members fight all their villains. (The closest thing I know of is Kingdom Come, but again, that draws heavily from The Dark Knight Returns, and so we have the JL coming out of retirement in a post-modern world to make a statement about 90s comics.)

The only comic I can think that really tries to be a definitive ending for a superhero is 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' for the Silver Age Superman. And, because it's Alan Moore, almost the entire cast dies. So that's not much help to MHA. And it struggles under the burden of those Silver Age Superman comics not having an ongoing story or links between its villains. As we all know, manga is a very different animal in terms of structure than Western comics because of being able to tell a single story with a singular creative vision, no matter how drawn out it may be.

Anyway, I guess I'm saying I hope MHA provides some lessons to the next work that tries to bridge Eastern and Western comics, on both sides of the Pacific.

#loopy watches mha

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leashade · 3 months

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about degrading content

I told it multiple times before and will say it again here: I don't like where the content is going these days. It feels like it turned into a giant stream of stuff, which nobody asked for or cares about.

On one hand we have YouTube, which can be used by anyone, so it kinda turns into an endless well of content and knowledge (this is also why any YouTube competitors are doomed to fail and why any attempts to block and censor it won't go well: it might work, but the losses will be much MUCH bigger). This, combined with algorithms creates a situation when a user gets overwhelmed by content, which you can't even consume in a lifetime. Every single person and their dog has a channel, podcast, show or whatever.

But if it would be just YT it would be fine. The platform is diverse enough and content is made by people. It balances itself.

The problems start when big corporations start to do the same.

We have Netflix, a very successful streaming platform. But to keep it at the top they "have" to pump out a lot of exclusive content and lure people in -- offer something of value so it would make sense to pay.

Content costs money, and creating content all the time burns through your money rather quickly, so you have to get rid of expensive stuff and stuff that didn't perform too well.

But even better approach is to just create an endless stream of shit which people will watch once and forget it ever existed. You can even play with modern trends or whatever, make a nice looking preview, etc.

And platforms like YT and Netflix had a giant advantage: they didn't have competitors, not really. YT doesn't really have a real replacement, and Netflix was the first successful streaming service (to the point when people would use the name as a verb meaning "watch something on TV"). You could find a giant supply of great shows using just one subscription.

But now every big studio has their own streaming service, and this kind of defeats the whole purpose, why Netflix became so popular in the first place.

Now you have 10 streaming services with their own exclusive content, and nobody wants to pay for every single subscription at once. But they all still want to stay afloat -- and it's really expensive.

So we have Disney+. The Mouse has their own streaming and started releasing a lot of unnecessary and empty content in big batches, one after another. Marvel Cinematic Universe movies turned from important cultural events to yet another shitty thing, overwhelming people and oversaturating the market with low quality content. It becomes too much, you can't watch all these shows, and most of them are not even worth it. All the nostalgia baits, remakes, reshoots and reuses of the old franchises are all there too.

And all this subscription system turned into the giant evil monster which makes this problem even worse. I wrote about movies and shows, but it applies to podcasts, videos, books and videogames too.

The biggest problem: important cultural events and modern classics just blend in with the endless conveyor of stuff. Today you get something new and forget whatever was yesterday, then you get another tomorrow. Social discussion about a project ends without even starting. You just get so many things coming out that they lose all their importance and meaning.

"Classics" and "cultural phenomenons" didn't really disappear, but they just get lost with whatever is out there, the "classics" just becomes a part of this content soup.

Why am I saying all this and what's my suggestion? Dude, I don't know, absolutely no idea. But I really don't like it.

#ranting-about-things

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survivingart · 5 years

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STORY IS EVERYTHING

Be it online or in person, there’s a lot of competition in the arts. And the fact that the art world is much smaller compared to the world of business, law or medicine, only makes it harder for any one artist to succeed. While everybody online is telling us to “niche down”, and explaining why it’s so important, usually no specific tactics are disclosed, and the how is left for us to figure out for ourselves.

This blunder is intended for anyone who wishes to find their focus and stand out in today’s oversaturated creative market by understanding the immense power of storytelling — especially when positioning ones creative skill and aspirations in the market.

Regardless if you paint, sculpt, make experimental video installations or are a political performance artist, the main goal for all of us is to express ourselves.

We do so not because it’s the quickest or easiest way of making a living, but because it’s who we

are. Most of us love our craft in some form or another and follow some internal aspirations that guide our interest and consequently the kind of art we make.

But while creativity is a general term, it could not be describing a more colourful and rich abundance of personal motifs and ambitions of why we do what we do.

For example, I could be selling skilfully crafted portraits because of my passion for creating narratives about beauty, intimacy and connection. But it could also be that I just really enjoy painting figures and fabric and am good enough at it to charge for my work.

Both are great reasons to make a portrait and market ones skill, but even if the end product looks similar in both cases, their target audience couldn’t be more different.

So, let’s put the “art” in artwork.

I’d like to open this conversation with one of the hardest, but probably the simplest of all questions to answer, because we need to get it out of our way to really get the point of why story matters so much. But to find the answer we will have to go all in and drop the proverbial A-bomb.

We’ll have to ask the big question. The one you can read about in 50€+ books, written by prominent and knowledgeable art historians and theoreticians, whose answers are mostly written so thoroughly, so extensively, that one needs a dictionary to find their point.

Ready?

What is Art?

Boom.

Unlike most other questions like: “What is carpentry?”, “What is music?”, even “What is philosophy?”, we artists and other creative souls appear to have an enormous problem — none of us really seem to know what the heck we are doing in our lives. Not because we are confused, undisciplined or too spontaneous, but because no-one actually seems to know what art is.

If you ask most academic professors, they will usually give you an academic answer. If they’re more on the liberal side, it will surely have to do with the freedom of expression and the lyrical power of images in the fight against social injustice.

Ask a person in the street — anyone you want really — and they might tell you it’s something pretty, something that looks good. And probably also something that is quite expensive. For a wealthy collector it might be freedom; a way of expressing themselves without the need to actually learn how to paint or draw or sculpt.

A tattoo artist will tell you it’s tattoos. A barber will tell you it’s an exquisite haircut. An IT technician might even tell you it’s a perfectly sorted and laid out collection of ethernet and electrical cables in the server room.

Just don’t ask an aesthetician — the branch of philosophy that researches art — and they might tell you a lot. Truth be told, they might tell you too much while saying very little. A wonderful example is Tiziana Andina’s prominently titled book: “The Philosophy of Art: The Question of Definition: From Hegel to Post-Dantian Theories”. Read at your own peril.

Art seems to be everything. And we all know that something that is everything is consequently nothing at all.

We have to take a closer look into the production of art; the making of paintings, sculptures, videos and maybe even haircuts and tackle the question by investigating the process of making something an art piece.

So, let’s see if we can’t fix this mess of tattoos, pretty pictures and ethernet cables into a more workable definition by asking a better question: What makes something art?

In the 1960s the art world had a small crisis, caused by none other than the famous pop artist Andy Warhol. The root of the crisis was his artwork, titled simply: Brillo Box.

It looked exactly the same as a normal Brillo soap pad box, albeit being made out of wood. The question: What made Andy’s Brillo boxes art, but at the same time dismissed the original boxes made by James Harvey (the creator of the design) as mere industrial design?

Surely it wasn’t looks, and it couldn’t have been materials — the prestige of using silkscreen on wood instead of printing on cardboard was not the deciding factor after all. The only real difference that one could discern was the name associated with either product.

You had Andy Warhol superstar and the other guy.

Apart from being a marvellous posh object to own, Andy’s Brillo box shines light onto an immensely important topic in art, namely that when push comes to shove, the classification of an artistic piece does not have anything to do with its physical composition — be it medium, motif, size, you name it…

This is immensely important, because if we distill the factors that make up art, we can get a pretty rough, yet quite precise equation, that looks a bit like this:

ART = Viewer + Art Piece + Artist

But why does it now seem like the art piece, the central point of the equation isn’t really important? Well, there’s another surprise coming up.

The artist has been regarded as a genius ever since the invention of the cave painting about 40.000 years ago. The master painter, listening to the whispers of his or her muses and transcribing the messages of the gods into reality, for all of humanity to experience the righteous powers of the divine.

As humans, we couldn’t have been more proud of the lineage of artistic mastery that our planet had created over the years, and we had every reason for it. From the Ancient Greeks to Giotto and Titian, then Caravaggio, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso … all geniuses in the craft, that shaped how we perceive reality itself.

But then came the trickster. The black sheep, the snake, the devil himself. Then, came Duchamp.

In 1917 as part of The Society of Independent Artists’ exhibition at the The Grand Central Palace, he unveiled his biggest joke of all — a urinal. And even though the organisation of the exhibition had promised that each and every art piece that was entered in the application stage would be shown, they decided to remove The Fountain (as Duchamp named his vertical toilet) from the exhibition.

It was serious.

But the problem that Duchamp’s art piece created was minuscule compared to the big issue that was yet to come. His simple question : “Is this art?” didn’t just create a revolt inside The Society of Independent Artists, it started a revolution.

Thus, conceptualism was born.

The point he was trying to make was simple: Art is an internal human experience, not an invisible aura imbued into an object by some artistic genius.

The art world though, instead of getting his point, concluded that Nietzsche was indeed correct; the gods of art, beauty and aesthetics truly did perish. The murderer’s weapon was finally found — fully drenched in nothing but bloody ideology, the Fountain stood as proof.

Now, more than 100 years later, this narrative is still the bedrock of many institutions, both commercial and educational. And I feel it is about time we change this.

Not only could more people start to appreciate art — instead of thinking of it as a pretentious playground for the rich, filled with expensive junk and weird intellectuals — but by removing some of the misconceptions that either artist or artwork are the origin of the artistic experience, we could actually improve the status of us artists in society.

How?

By educating the viewer. By making our artistic process visible to all via social media and other means. By not trying to overcomplicate our work descriptions and artist statements and ending the need to feel like we have to defend our right to paint, sculpt, dance or make videos, with big words and complex explanations.

By connecting with our audience and being strong, sincere and genuine people. And with social media exploding in a constantly connected world, the timing just couldn’t be better.

Art is a multitude of stories, each different from another and all created by every one of our viewers.

And like good spelling and a decent vocabulary are the bedrock for any novel, we visual artists have a bunch of tools that we can use to build our narratives too.CREATING YOUR STORY (CONTEXT AND CONTENT)

In 1976, artist and critic Brian O’Doherty published his essay Inside the White Cube, that not only created lots of buzz in the art world, but gave this popular mode of displaying art in museums and commercial galleries a catchy new name.

While his wonderful critique of the White Cube is better to read in the original form, I would like to focus on one psychological factor that made his essay become so well known.

People experience things instantly and as a whole, rather than a collection of individual parts. When looking at a red triangle, we can’t just decide to see it as a triangle or just as something red — we always see both of its features at the same time.

Similarly with music; we can’t decide to hear just the tone of a note, while zoning out the colour of the sound (for example hearing the same note being played on a drum compared to a double bass or saxophone).

We as beings need context for just about everything in our lives — even our ability for differentiating object sizes and various temperatures is done by creating context from the surrounding environment.

Ok, but what does this have to do with art? Truth be told — everything.

As art is subjective, we can never really take full control over how a viewer of our show or a customer who bought one of our pieces will understand the work’s narrative.

A description of the work might help, but some actually prefer to make up their own mind about what a particular art piece means to them on a strictly personal level, rather than listening to the artist describe what it should mean. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

But, while we aren’t able to control everything our viewer will experience, there are many aspects of our work that we absolutely can and should be thinking about. Because understanding them makes our job of finding potential buyers or getting a place in an exhibition incredibly easier.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Choose materials carefully, not just as a means to an end but as building blocks of your work’s narrative.

A marble sculpture and a wood carving of the same motif tell different stories. Both may be a portrait of someone, but marble will always communicate prestige, longevity and may form subconscious connections to Ancient Greek and Roman statues of prominent individuals, making the portrayed look even more respectable and important. Wood on the other hand is softer and warmer in appearance and more suitable for creating intimate portraits emphasising emotion rather than status.

Evoke emotions, then seal the deal with a well prepared concept.

Nothing is worse than a conceptual piece that doesn’t also work on an emotional level. The appearance of your work will make or break its ability to convey your message, so regardless of how brilliant your idea may be, if your work doesn’t first captivate your viewer and make them curious enough to step closer, all is lost.

Presentation is really important when exhibiting your work.

Adjust lighting, surrounding objects like tables, chairs, plants … to compliment your work, or at least not to distract your viewers attention.

Impressionists used a lot of green leafy plants to compliment the vibe of their paintings, modernists decided to completely remove everything (including the frame of a painting or plinth of a sculpture) to maximise emphasis on their work — hence the White Cube principle.

When showing work online, it is imperative to get it right.

Show your work not just as a clean, shadowless and speckless photograph with good colour correction (because the images should look identical to the real thing), but incorporate it into an environment — even a generic architectural shot of a living room will be better than nothing.

Give your online images enough context and help your visitors understand the colours, size, textures and other features of your work by providing enough visual information; a few detail shots, a side view and maybe even the back of the work (if it’s 2D). For spatial works, maybe make a 360° GIF by stitching together multiple angles — nobody wants to buy a sculpture only to find that they don’t like the rear end of it.

The venue is a big part of your exhibition.

If you paint a picture of an apple being picked by a woman somewhere in a forest and hang it in an office of a juice company, people will probably see a nice lady picking apples. But hang it in a church community centre and people might see the highly complex concept of Ancestral Sin.

Same painting, same communication, immensely different results — just by changing the context.

So whenever you have the chance — for example if you are invited to create a show in a certain gallery from scratch — work with the space in mind, or change it if you can to make it a better fit for your work.

Regardless of what kind of art you create, if you make a thorough examination of the materials you use, the message you are trying to tell and the environment you are telling it in, you can use all of this information to reverse-engineer your work to find your target audience.

It should never be the other way around.

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#artist life #contemporary art #surviving art #make art everyday #blog

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lady-griffin · 4 years

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Birds of Prey and The Not So Fantabulous Opening Weekend

Birds of Prey did not do well at the Box Office.

I’ve seen some people disagree with that…but it simply didn’t.

$35 Million (Domestic) is not a strong opening for a Superhero Hero movie that cost between $85 – $100 million to make (not including marketing).

It’s Worldwide Total Opening was $81.6 Million, which is also bad.

Birds of Prey is the lowest opening for a DCEU film. It’s about $20 Million below Shazam, which made $53.5 (domestic) its opening weekend.

Not a good sign, since Shazam/Captain Marvel (DC) is not a character known by general moviegoers, while Harley Quinn is an extremely popular character and was made known to many people through Suicide Squad and was one of the most popular things to come out of that movie.

Now, I’m of the personal belief that the first two weekends of movie really tell you whether it flopped or not, as well as the movie’s entire box office earnings.

But it’s not looking great for Birds of Prey.

So, I wanted to talk about some of the reasons why it might’ve suffered over the weekend and also what are the chances of it making a comeback. As well as what the movie will likely have to make to earn its money back.

Title Confusion

Talking to some of my friends and family, I realized that the title did not do BOP any favors.

A few of them didn’t realize Birds of Prey was the a Harley Quinn movie, let alone a Superhero/DC flick. They knew a Harley Quinn movie was coming out, but they hadn’t realize the two were one in the same.

Birds of Prey and Birds of Prey (and The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) are not exactly eye-catching or gripping titles.

I personally, thought Birds of Prey (and The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is not a good title and annoying long.

Which leads it to be shortened to make it easier, which is how people are going refer to the film, and Birds of Prey doesn’t indicate to your casual audience what it is or about.

Especially, when not many people know who the Birds of Prey are, while a known superhero group for comic book fans, it’s not a well-known hero group.

And the studio seems to agree with that, if you go online to look up the film, it’s now Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.

That was not the title on Box Office Mojo on Sunday (Feb 09).

So the studio is definitely trying to fix the title problem.

Personally, for me, I think it would’ve been better if the movie was titled Harley Quinn and The Birds of Prey from the very beginning. For a few reasons, but mainly -

I think that’s more accurate to the actual plot of the movie and the importance of the characters in the film

You know it involves DC and Harley Quinn

And it has a more Girl Vibe to it, to the likes of Josie and The Pussycats

However, I am honestly curious if this title will change anything for the movie, especially with the box office this upcoming weekend or if it’s simply to late.We shall see.

What is this film even about?

Going off my own personal conversations with other people, a lot of people don’t know what this film is really about. Which is think is connected to both the title and trailers.

I was super-interested in the movie and I was actively seeking it out on my own. Looking up fan theories or speculations as well estimates for how the movie will do and I recognized who the character were in the trailer. So, I knew what it was going to be about.

But, if someone is more casual about this kind of movie or movies in general, than I can see where they felt lost or didn’t know all that much.

One of my friends had no idea that Black Canary and Huntress were even in the movie and once she learned that they were in it, her interest increased.

Especially, when I told her that this version of Black Canary and Huntress our second to my favorite from Justice League: Unlimited. Which is where she knows Black Canary and Huntress from.

Suicide Squad PTSD

Or, as two friends put it, the trailers reminded them so much of Suicide Squad that it turned them off from wanting to see this film.

That’s interesting to me and I think provides a unique problem for Birds of Prey in the DCEU, but also something I don’t think some reviewers focus on.

Overall, a telling of a movie’s success is (if it has one) its sequel’s success. Sequels are often expected to do better than the first movie, because they are going off the good will of said film. Now that’s not always the case, but that’s what Hollywood is hoping for.

And while many, many people saw Suicide Squad, its opening weekend being $133.6 million (domestic), a lot of people did not like the movie.

Including myself.

I liked aspects of it – Harley Quinn, Dead Shot, and Amanda Waller and two scenes that I thought were excellent.

People not wanting to see Birds of Prey because it looked too much like Suicide Squad, might seem less like a BOP problem, but I would disagree.

The movie still went with many style choices that are from Suicide Squad or similar enough.

And beyond style, the movie does have Suicide Squad elements. While I thought those aspects were done better, I wonder if that matters enough in the long run.

The Trailer

I personally did not like the trailers. I thought the music choice was not the right pick and made the movie feel like it was going to be slow and low-energy, which is the opposite of what you want for Harley Quinn.

When I think of Harley Quinn, I think of high-energy and I think a movie starring her should be a fast-moving and high-action movie with lots of energy.

One problem, I found with the film was its pacing. Sometimes it was too fast (with jumpy editing reminiscent of Suicide Squad) and other times it seemed liked molasses.

So, I thought the trailer was not the best marketing that could’ve been done for this movie. Especially when I thought a lot of the posters were really good and the music choices in the film were well-matched and worked with the film.

I personally love Joke’s On You By Charlotte Lawrence.

youtube

R-Rating

One of the reasons Birds of Prey struggled was because of the lack of teenagers.

An R-Rating makes it difficult for teenagers to see this movie. And from the “leaving cinema” reviews audiences gave, those under 17 had the most positive reaction to the film.

So, if the demographic that liked this move the most can only see this film with someone over 18, then BOP shot itself in the foot.

Not only does the rating make it more difficult for them to see the movie in the first place, but also multiple times. Especially with theatres being stricter with R-ratings from what I’ve heard.

This movie did not need to be R as it didn’t really use its R-Rating to the fullest extent. I even wondered what the point of the R-Rating was when I was watching.

Honestly, some edits and it could’ve easily been PG-13 and that would’ve opened it up to a larger audience.

One of my favorite parts of the movie, was the Police Raid Scene, where Harley uses non-lethal (movie-wise) force. And while that makes Harley more appealing to audiences (not killing people) it also feels odd and kind of makes the R-Rating pointless.

That was a major problem. Especially in comparison to the Joker, which I though utilized its R-Rating fully.

Also, DC clearly was trying to have Harley Quinn be their Deadpool. Which could work in theory, but they didn’t really commit to it and honestly it didn’t work out as well as I thought it coud’ve. At least with the execution.

So, maybe the R-Rating was not the best choice for this film and maybe it should’ve gone with the safer PG-13.

Theatre Rewatchability

How many people went to see this movie two or three times over this past weekend?

I’m going to hazard a guess and say not many, if any at all. And that is an interesting point in the huge box office success of big blockbuster movies.

How much of their monetary success is due to moviegoers seeing a movie just once vs. seeing it 2-3 (or even more) times?

Now to be fair, I wonder what the demographic of moviegoers who go to multiple viewings. I’m assuming male, 20s-30s. But honestly, I have no idea and I could be completely wrong, since I don’t do that.

Seeing movie multiple times in a theater is not something I personally get. There are very few movies where I’ve actively wanted to see it for a second time in the theatre, let alone actually went to see it a second time.

I can remember 6 movies in which that was the case - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Aladdin (2019), Avengers: Infinity War, Wonder Woman, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers.

So, while I am actually likely to see this movie again (with my dad in like two weeks), I can’t say over the weekend I desperately needed or wanted to go see it again. And I liked the film and had a good time.

Of course, that should be taken with a grain of salt, since again I’m not the type of person who does that.

I have to wonder, if the people who go to see (blockbuster) movies multiple times (especially on opening weekend) were simply satisfied with seeing this movie only once or simply didn’t like it or didn’t see it at all.

Alienating Comic Book Fans?

I don’t know how true this is and as a comic book fan, I went to see the movie and I enjoyed it.

But I have seen a few people say they aren’t planning to see it (at least not in theatres) as they are tired of the oversaturation of Harley Quinn in everything, don’t like that Cassandra Cain is there in name only (which did annoy me), and that while being Birds of Prey there is no Oracle/Batgirl who is a main member of said team.

And I say I don’t know how true this or even accurate, but Birds of Prey didn’t do itself any favors by not appealing enough to a mainstream audience nor its niche audience who know and love the material it’s based on.

Oscars

While the actual Oscars likely did not take away any audiences from BOP, as the Oscars aren’t exactly a huge audience magnet itself.

I think a lot of people (or enough) went to see an Oscar nominated film this past weekend over BOP.

My theatre was showing Oscar-nominated movies and had two theatres dedicated to an ‘Oscar marathon’ for both long and short nominated features.

In this past weekend’s Box Office results (Feb 07-09) , 1917 was 3rd, Little Women was 8th, Parasite was 11th and Jojo Rabbit was 12th.

And Marriage Story, The Irishmen, and The Story of Two Popes are all available on Netflix.

So, I wonder how many people went to see an Oscar Nominated film before the Oscars and decided to see BOP another day or weekend.

Man Hating...depending on who you ask.

This is probably longer than it needed to be, but I wanted to talk about. So feel free to skip to the Conclusion.

I’m sure plenty of people will disagree with this and be angry I suggested it, but a lot of people, both men and women thought this movie was hating on men and did not like that.

And according to the opening night or weekend demographics the breakdown of the audience was actually 55% Men and 45% women. So it’s not like men refused to see the movie, some probably did, but apparently so did some women.

Honestly that’s not a bad split of male and female demographics, but the movie was probably hoping for a larger female turnout, if not a larger turnout all together.

While I’ve seen several men dislike the movie for its lack of sexiness (and the hating on men) a lot of those men still went to see it. So, whether or not they hated it, their ticket still counts.

But a negative opinion on any movie can turn away who knows how many future audience members.

Now my impression of the movie was not so much Men=Evil and Women=Good, but more of the idea that this movie and its characters are dealing with the underbelly of Gotham City and the less than upstanding citizens.

Thay being said, I am only one ticket.

And when I thought about it, there are really only 3-4 male characters who weren’t straight up sexist or evil (which is a low bar) and all of them were extremely minor roles.

Spoilers Below

Male Assassin/Goon, who saw Helena was alive and saved her

A non-speaking minor role and to my knowledge he didn’t have a name, so not exactly a great representation of a good man.

The assassin thing is just neutral, given all the other characters.

Guy at Roman’s club, who was force to undress his friend/girlfriend out of fear of dying

You get why he had to do it, but he still did it. So again not great.

And once I thought about it, I feel like this scene could’ve easily been done differently. The guy could’ve refused and Zsasz could’ve beaten him or kill him and the main point of the scene is still there, that Roman is unstable and very, very dangerous.

Doc, the man who knows everyone in the criminal world and sold out Harley for money

Here is where things get interesting. I honestly didn’t think he was a bad guy.

I got why he did it. It made sense to me and I think he made the right decision there. And Harley Quinn, basically did the same thing to Cassandra, so at the very least he’s no better then Quinn.

So, while I saw the Doc example as criminals being criminals. Many other people, saw this as another example of men being shitty. And even though I’m aligning him with the ‘good men’ of the film, that kind of proves people’s point of there being no good men in this film.

Finaly, The Police Captain and Montoya’s former partner - Captain Patrick Erickson. I had to look his name up, so that’s not good.

Here is where I think you honestly get the narrative of the film being against men and unfairly so.

We don’t see him do anything in the actual movie that is that bad or even sexist (or at least I can’t recall it).

So while none his choices or actions in the film were bad, the narrative and the tone of his scenes (especially since their from the perspective of Montoya) he’s clearly meant to be seen as a ‘bad guy’ or at least an antagonist.

We are literally told he took the credit for Montoya’s big case in a voiceover by Harley Quinn. And that’s it.

A dick move to be sure, but again, nothing he does in the actual movie really shows him being a dick.

So, for me it felt like his character got the short end and unfairly so by the movie. Especially since that voice over primes the audience to see him as an antagonist, despite what he does in his actual scenes.

So, thinking about that, I am liking it less and less. And feel like the movie could’ve made some simply changes.

And while not my take away, I did consider this opinion after seeing it more than once. And I think that argument does have had a leg or two to stand on, especially when I consider how the movie handled the Police Captain Character.

However, for me I never really felt like this movie hated men, because while a villain and a complete psychopath who was sexist, I absolutely loved Ewan McGregor’s Black Mask.

I thought he was such a fantastic and engaging villain and I absolutely loved his scenes and was hooked everytime he was on screen.

Far from a good guy to be sure, but to me that didn’t matter so much, because he was such a fantastic character. And he was such a fun and gleefully evil character to watch.

For me, having a male character that’s was so goddamn fun and enjoyable mattered far more than whether or not he was good or bad, morality speaking.

Unfortunately, the movie wasted his character at the end.

So, whether or not you agree or disagree that this move hates men.

I would say that having at least one male character who wasn’t a bad guy or at the very least as good as the main characters would’ve helped the movie, given how it’s done so far.

If the movie had done amazing or met expectation, I would say you might have a different argument.

Conclusion

There could’ve been many reasons why BOP did less than great at the Box Office (to put it nicely). Some of the reasons could’ve been the main reason or not the reason at all, but most likely it’s a combination of several different factors.

However, if it has a good hold this upcoming weekend, then well the narrative of BOP’s success will change.

And that doesn’t seem impossible for it.

Despite some vocal negativity and it not being everyone’s favorite, Birds of Prey overall got a postive reaction from a lot of the people who saw it. It has done well with audiences and critics and while not a guarantee of anything, that’s something.

6.7 out of 10 on IMDB.

83% and now 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.

B+ Cinema Score.

Google says 83% of its users like it.

Google Audience’s score is 3.7 out of 5.

60% on Metacritic

So while not the most amazing reviews of all time, they are not overtly bad and even some of them are decently strong.

The real questions is BOP capable of expanding on the moviegoers who liked and saw it.

BOP needs a good hold this upcoming weekend in its box-office numbers.

Basically movies that drop 60% or higher from their opening weekend to their second weekend, show that said movies are not going to do well (box office wise) and that they have no legs to continue on (not likely to make a lot of money in theatres).

They simply didn’t have a good hold.

Blockbusters are a bit of a different story, as most have a drop rate of 60% or higher, but that’s because so many people went to see it the opening weekend (they’re front-loaded films).

Also, if your movie made 100+ million (domestically) it’s first weekend, well your movie is likely going to be just fine. Actually, that depends on how much the movie cost to make and what were the expectations for it, but you get my point.

Birds of Prey did not have a Blockbuster opening, so a drop of 60% or higher would be awful for it and the movie will truly be dead in the water.

Second Weekend Total: $13 mil or less would be bad to very bad (60% drop)

Less than 59% is (technically) okay to even good.

Second Weekend Total: $15 million (55% drop) not great, but certainly better than awful. And I think people could spin this to being good or bad result.

Less than 50% is very good.

Second Weekend Total: Around 18.5 million (45%) would be very good.

Less than 40% pretty darn great and an excellent hold.

Second Weekend total: Around $21 mil (35%) would honestly be so good for this movie, I don’t know how likely that is to be honest.

Birds of Prey’s hold for its second weekend, could easily make or break this movie.

Of course, while the first two weekends of a movie are important, a movie’s final box office total matters just as much, if not more.

BOP cost $85-100 mil (not including marketing). So to find out what the movie would have to make to earn it’s money back for the studio. We are going to do a bit of movie math.

I am going to say the budget cost $100 Mil (to be on the safe side) and since marketing budgets are not public information, we need to guess that element.

To figure the marketing budget we just need to cut the production budget in half to make a safe assumption for the marketing budget (a good rule to follow for any film).

Birds of Prey cost $150 Million to make. ($100 Production + $50 Marketing)

It would have to make $300 million to make its money back. I say $300 not $150, because theatres get half of that money. So even if it make $150 Million, the studio is only seeing half of that.

That’s the simple version of that, as technically there are more complications to consider, but were not going into that.

Whether or not the second weekend is a good hold or not, if Birds of Prey makes $300 million in its box office, it has made its money back and was not a loss for the studio.

That doesn’t mean it’s a success, but salvaged its theatrical run.

Now of course, just because a movie doesn’t do well at the Box Office doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie.

That’s always important to remember. Especially, if you liked the film.

And while the Box Office is a very good indicator of a film’s success and its future (sequels and franchise), there is also the factor of the Ancillary market (non-theatrical markets for feature films) this includes streaming, renting, television, airlines/hotels and so on.

So, a movie like BOP if it does badly Box Office wise can always find a second life in the ancillary market world.

And the sad truth is that Female-Centric movies do have a harder road to go down. If a male-centric movie does badly, no one’s take away is going to be that movies heavily featuring men are box office poison.

And yet, unfairly so, that can easily become the take away for this movie. There is simply more pressure when a female-centric film does badly.

And I think female-centric movies that are just okay, don’t invite in a lot of success either. Female driven movies simply have to be more than just okay and while that’s not fair, it’s true.

And there are going to be men (and probably some women) who don’t want to see a movie because they think it is too female focus or too feminist and that can always hurt a movie.

But the good news is while some of those people have loud voices, they are rarely the majority of people.

I think I’ve lost my point.

Basically, BOP did not do well in its opening debut and there could be many reasons behind that, but there is always a chance it can salvage itself (if not do very well) in its second weekend as well as in its overall run in theatres and out of theatres.

#Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey #Birds of Prey #BOP #birds of prey and the fantabulous emancipation of one harley quinn #Harley Quinn #Harley Quinn Movie #Box office

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chrissheridan552 · 4 years

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How comics came about

Before I begin cataloging the in universe history of the marvel universe i think its important to understand the marvels publishing history as well.

Marvel was founded in 1939 by publisher martin goodman, which most people have probably never even heard of, as when you think of marvels foundations you think of the late great stan lee. It wasn’t even known as marvel to begin with but rather was known as timely comics and rather the name marvel came from the title of their first comic book in October of the same year. this comic introduced the human torch, not the one from the fantastic four min you but an android man and namor the submariner.

these comics showed these heroes fighting against nazis during the world war acting as a sort of propaganda for the war some might argue. but as time went on comics weren't as popular and martin goodman formed his own distribution company and shed the name becoming atlas magazines instead and from my research it seems they stayed away from superheroes for a while instead dipping into other genres like humour westerns and horror.

then the success of DC comics superhero led comics made atlas change back to the genre of heroes now changing its name to marvel comics(1960) Marvel and DC where unquestionably the top dogs in the industry in the early days of comics but questionable management decisions and a general slump in sales in the comic book industry drove Marvel Comics into bankruptcy in 1996. comic books where deemed so popular issues of comics would increase in worth as time went on, they became collectors items but this was a big problem as it caused many fans to buy loads of the same comics in a hope to make some money reselling them making the comic market oversaturated and partly what led to the bankruptcy and Marvel selling off the rights to some of their most wee known characters.

Marvel was bought by 2007 by disney that transformed the company into the billion dollar power house it is today by making the marvel cinematic univers aka the mcu, comics where no longer for nerds but rather a mainstream product.

#IXD501

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therummesoccupied · 7 years

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A Swing and a Hit - A Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming

Many say that the superhero movie genre is getting tired, that the market’s oversaturated and that we’ve been flooded with too many context-dependant “cinematic universes.” To a degree, this is true. It’s astounding how much you needed to know about the universes and lore behind DC Comics before seeing Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice in order to even begin to understand the movie, let alone the information provided by the context set up in Man of Steel. Legendary Pictures is now gearing up for the third installment of their “MonsterVerse,” all leading up to a climactic standoff between monster film icons Godzilla and King Kong, and Universal Studios has been trying for years to re-establish its own movie monster universe, most recently with the apparent blunder that was The Mummy. However, one cannot have the conversation about the cinematic universe craze without discussing Marvel’s own “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” or as we have all come to know it, the MCU. The MCU is set apart from its competitors however, by a number of factors. One of which is history – the fact that the MCU was built from a single superhero movie, and has been introducing new characters and elements piece-by-piece organically since 2008. Another factor is the varying “flavors” of the movies. While each story certainly feels like it shares a world with the rest, the vast majority of the films are noticeably different from the others, making each stand out well enough to make watching any one of them on its own an enjoyable experience without feeling the need to marathon them all. The last characteristic factor of the MCU is organization, with Marvel splitting its stories up into “Phases,” or groups that all build up to climactic crossovers like The Avengers, sort of like seasons of a television show; this, I have found, is the most enjoyable way to look at these films. No one gets upset about needing the context from past episodes to fully understand the season finale of their favorite prime-time sitcom, and I honestly think to continue to apply that formula in the world of film is a daring and profitable move on Marvel’s part.

Now, the latest installment in Marvel’s “cinematic television series” is Spider-Man: Homecoming, a solo flick centering around Marvel’s main posterboy, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Many fans feel this piece has been a long time coming, with Spidey’s movie rights being held on lockdown for several years by Fox. After working out a deal on the rights, however, the web-slinger was able to join the party, first appearing in Captain America: Civil War. While Civil War’s context plays directly into Homecoming, the movie is not strictly required reading in order to get the general jist of the film’s plot. Peter Parker is given a new and improved spider-suit by Tony Stark and shipped back to New York City to continue his street-level super-heroics, but feels the need to prove himself capable of being a fully fledged Avenger. Tom Holland returns as Parker, bringing with him an energy that is a breath of truly fresh air to the MCU. Up until now, every hero we’ve seen has been unswervingly mature or noble or cocky or smart or something. Whatever a hero in the MCU is, they’re supremely confident and grounded in their character, making them seem always sure of whatever they’re saying or doing. Holland’s Spider-Man is able to bring a believable uncertainty to his character, always questioning his next move or the words that leave his mouth. Peter Parker is a teenager, and he’s going through a turbulent time in his life. On top of his typical puberty-ridden crises, he’s also got superheroing to worry about. Honestly, neither Toby MacGuire nor Andrew Garfield were able to bring this youthful conflict to the character, and when they did, it came off as the moans of a worker who simply didn’t like their job, because, simply put, Toby was too old and Andrew was too cool. Tom Holland has an astoundingly pretty face for 21, and has no trouble passing for a 15 year old, and he’s simply too adorable to be the cool guy. Sorry, Tom. Whatever the case, “conflicted geek kid” seemed to fit Holland like a glove. Holland’s performance was supplemented by the rest of Parker’s high-school crew, namely Jacob Batalon and Zendaya, who portray characters Ned and Michelle respectively. Neither of them are quite present enough to overtake the film, but both are able to contribute to Parker’s youthful energy enough to remind us that Peter is, in fact, a real high schooler. Part of the problem with past Spider-Man films is the lack of many school elements in Parker’s life. His relationship with others is usually limited to Aunt May and an obligatory love interest. We were never shown that Peter had a real boy’s life away from the red tights, and the simple act of giving him some friends was more than enough to ground this film in the hormone ridden halls of late childhood.

Peter is also helped along by his mentor figure, Tony Stark, continuing to be played by acclaimed actor and MCU icon, Robert Downey Jr. Before the film was released, I heard a lot of talk about from folks worrying that RDJ might steal the show. Rest assured, fellow viewers, the Armored Avenger hardly occupies the screen for ten minutes of this entire movie. I’d thank the people upstairs, too, as there is something… off… about RDJ’s performance. He comes off as a bit more calm and mature than usual, almost dad-like, which I suppose might be the angle they were going for, but it doesn’t seem to suit Stark well. In the past, Stark takes every opportunity he can to be snide and mean-spirited unless an issue is serious enough to truly upset him. Giving Peter his “son, I’m disappointed in you” talk while neither making an inappropriate joke nor raising his voice just seems very out of character for him. It seemed like Downey was given a choice to be either too hard or too soft on Peter, but chose to fall somewhere in the middle, which, while a suitable choice, didn’t seem to be quite the right one.

Speaking of old superheroes, Michael Keaton, popular within the genre for Tim Burton’s Batman and the odd commentary, Birdman, takes another center-stage role as the film’s main antagonist, Adrian Toomes, who fans will recognize as classic Spider-Man villain: The Vulture. Keaton manages to bring one of the first genuinely intimidating auras to the MCU I’ve seen. The character’s motivations are ones I’m sure we’ve all seen before, aging labor worker gets ripped off by rich folks and takes matters into his own hands by undergoing criminal activity to support his family, truly and dangerously believing he’s in the right the whole time. The difference comes once the plot twist concerning the character is shown, which I won’t spoil, but I’ll say it makes him seem all the more real as a person, somehow making him much, much scarier.

Visually, the film is largely standard MCU fare. Vibrant, bright colors, over-the-top action scenes, and interesting spins on the more mundane scenes so they never get to be boring. I suppose that there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken. One of the things that sets this movie apart from other MCU flicks is the way it does motion. Being a Spider-Man film, a great emphasis is placed on the way Spider-Man moves – fluid, not-quite erratic flips, and clever use of momentum give this film’s action scenes a very unique visual flavor. Unfortunately, not much of this is ground that hasn’t been covered in Spider-Man films made in the past. What this one does that the others did not, however, is give us a view of New York City we don’t see in a whole lot of movies. The joke is often made among comic enthusiasts, “how would Spider-Man get around if there weren’t tall buildings for him to swing around on?” Honestly, neither TV Show, comic book, nor movie have really addressed this query up till now. This film seems to make a point of showing Spider-Man in places that are not Times Square. We see Spider Man in the back alleys, and in the suburbs where we are welcomed by the familiar sights of grass, trees, and even the occasional wooden fence. Getting to see Spidey operate somewhere other than the crowded city streets was a welcome surprise.

In addition to settings, I adored the look of the outfits, especially the spider-suit. When it was first announced that Spider-Man would be joining the MCU, I was skeptical – I had been disillusioned with Spider-Man for years (which just goes to show how well Tom Holland did to bring me back). As soon as I saw the spider-suit, though, my doubts almost completely washed away. The classic look, the bright colors, the expressive eyes, everything about it was quintessentially the great Spider-Man I remembered from my childhood – with a few touches of modern flair that only helped to make the suit look even better. We also got a much better look at Peter’s old spider-suit from when he was introduced in Civil War, and I’m just as in love with it - a clever visual reference to the Scarlet Spider design from the comics that manages to be both fun to look at and functional. A third spider-suit shortly appears in the film - an ugly, armored contraption reminiscent of DC’s mislead New 52 designs that I’m so, so glad doesn’t get used. As I said before, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

The movie’s story and themes, while easy to follow, lead to a couple confusing conclusions. There is not a single reference to Uncle Ben or the line “With great power comes great responsibility” in the entire film, and while I’m glad I didn’t have to sit through Spider-Man’s origin story again, I’m a little disappointed that the very core of Spider-Man’s character was never brought up in Spidey’s first solo step into the MCU. Still, the concept of responsibility is one of the central themes of the movie… I think. The movie spends a lot of time emphasizing that Peter isn’t ready to become an Avenger because he steps outside of his boundaries and tries to solve problems that aren’t his to handle, and at the end of the film, he redeems himself by… beating the bad guy he’s been told several times not to take on? I suppose one could interpret the movie’s core message as “to achieve greatness, one must be great.” Spidey must grow as a hero to accomplish the task before him and save the day, and by acting recklessly before he was ready, he screws up pretty bad. It’s only once he’s accepted the risk and responsibility that comes with being a hero that he can show how great he truly is. It’s a simple enough conclusion to understand, I guess, but it takes some effort to get there that the movie could have easily lessened with a bit of dialogue change or shift in focus.

Still, the movie manages to tell a strong and effective story with the most relatable Spider-Man to date. I couldn’t tell you whether Spider-Man: Homecoming is the best Spider-Man film out there, but its performers certainly bring a unique and youthful presence to it and its visuals manage to meld old and new together to create an impressively fitting and engaging look at the world of everyone’s favorite webhead. With effective characters and a compelling setting, the challenge and fun of the story fall right into place – giving the movie a fantastic tone that falls somewhere between the excitement and adventure of The Avengers and the endearingly comedic romp that is Guardians of the Galaxy. Spider-Man has found himself fitting right in with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I’m glad to see my friendly neighborhood hero come home.

#spider-man: homecoming #spider-man #tom holland #review #mcu

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Dying Light 2 Will Hopefully Be Techland’s Masterpiece

February 7, 2020 10:30 AM EST

Techland’s next zombie-infested endeavor, Dying Light 2, will be the most slept on game in 2020…if it releases this year.

Somewhere in the early aughts, there was this incredible resurgence of zombies in media. Whether it was movies like 28 Days Later (which debatably started this reinvigoration), comics like The Walking Dead, or games like Dead Rising, zombies were everywhere. It was really neat for a while, but like all good things, it inevitably became an oversaturated market. There were quality zombie stories still being made, but there were vast amounts of zombie garbage flooding what is typically beloved.

2015’s Dying Light was one of those pieces of media, launching somewhere near the tail-end of this revival of the undead. It also released during a time where no games were coming out in January 2015, which is usually noted as the reason this game did as well as it did. But I think that doesn’t give Dying Light enough credit. Out of the many survival-horror games that have launched during this generation, Techland’s parkour zombie adventure is one of the best.

“Out of the many survival-horror games that have launched during this generation, Techland’s parkour zombie adventure is one of the best.”

Even as that zombie storm has calmed, Techland is still dedicated to telling stories with the undead at the pit of its plot. Dying Light 2 is the next iteration that will have you swinging, climbing, and jumping around the infected and dilapidated cityscape.

When the sequel was announced, I was excited, but it wasn’t something I needed to play this instant. It didn’t receive the same reaction when I saw the Star Fox team in Starlink. Just as a reference, I legitimately slammed my fist on a glass table I screamed with joy when I heard the Star Fox gibberish from the Ubisoft press conference. But I was still pretty excited.

It wasn’t until I saw some footage of Dying Light 2 (which is now available to the public) and spoke to the developers at E3 2018 where I was convinced this was more than just a sequel to a really good zombie game. If it makes good on every promise, this game may be one of the most influential games of the year (if it comes out in 2020).

Dying Light’s gameplay hinged on its parkour movement. Along with its day/night cycle, it is what differentiated it between other zombie-focused experiences. Despite that, its movement always felt clunky and stiff. There were hardly any moments where my movements felt natural. Much of my gripes with its movement deal with both its controls, which I mentioned just felt stiff, and its environmental/art design.

Remember when games were just different shades of brown? Dying Light was one of those games. I guess that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but the environments were intensely drab to the point where finding a good line was incomprehensible, especially during some of the more tense moments of the game.

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As seen in the footage above, which features much of what I saw at E3 2018, still presents a sort of drab aesthetic. The ruined city is a bit grey, but still brings a lot of colors, making it a bit easier to mentally lay out a path you can traverse through. Also, the parkour movement seems to have much more of a flow than its predecessor.

My only concern is how some of the animations, like the roll and the mantle, will affect gameplay in Dying Light 2. If it’s snappy, a la DOOM‘s (2016) glory kills, I think the traversal will be a massive improvement from the first release. If not, then hopefully the game is balanced to adhere to that. Regardless, from the footage shown, I am pretty sold on its gameplay.

However, it wasn’t really the game that sold me on Dying Light 2. It was how the choices you make actually change the world, both visually and functionally. I have always been a sucker for RPGs that give the player a feeling of choice. Games like Fable, Mass Effect, and Telltale’s The Walking Dead may have a couple of pre-determined endings, but each choice has weight, and you feel it pressing on you with every decision you make.

“We’ve seen dynamic quest systems in games, but Dying Light 2 is taking things to a whole other level.”

The example of this that has been shown for Dying Light 2 involves a group called the Peacekeepers, two shifty-looking brothers, and a water tower. The Peacekeepers want you to help them take control of the water tower, so they can give water to the citizens of The City. When you get there, two brothers are attempting to take it for themselves.

Choosing to help the Peacekeepers will open a new area with structures built to make traversal less strenuous, as well as giving you access to water around The City at no price. It’s a pretty nice gesture, until you find out this group ruthlessly punishes anyone who disobeys them.

However, helping the brothers has its own benefits and problems. In doing so, the brothers begin selling the water to the citizens of the region. You’ll also have to rely more on your parkour skills rather than the structures that the Peacekeepers would have built if they had control of the water tower. The benefit is that you get a nice cut of their profit, as well as free water. Both outcomes will also introduce new groups around the region giving you even more opportunities to progress the narrative in the way you see fit.

“How your choices truly affect everything from the environment’s landscape, to the citizens’ everyday lives is so astonishing.”

We’ve seen dynamic quest systems in games, but Dying Light 2 is taking things to a whole other level with this. The differences in how The City evolves is unbelievable. How your choices truly affect everything from the environment’s landscape, to the citizens’ everyday lives is so astonishing. If Techland can actually bring this experience to fruition, I legitimately believe it can change how choice-based RPGs are approached.

While DualShockers has been flooded with features this week spotlighting the staff’s most anticipated games of the year, this puts me at a weird spot. Recently announced in the past few weeks, Dying Light 2 will be delayed to an unspecified date, for which I have some theories.

The first reason is a bit obvious. Techland has stated that Dying Light 2 will be a cross-gen game. Currently, the platforms that have been announced are PC, PS4, and Xbox One. I think it is safe to say it will also be coming to Xbox Series X and PS5. Maybe the delay is in part because the Polish studio wants to wait until the next-gen consoles launch. It would certainly put more eyes on Dying Light 2, especially if it surprises like being a launch title for the new consoles.

“If Techland can actually bring this experience to fruition, I legitimately believe it can change how choice-based RPGs are approached.”

Personally, I think Dying Light 2 releases in 2021. Think about the games that are launching this year: Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us Part II, DOOM Eternal, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Marvel’s Avengers, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Ghost of Tsushima, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and this is just what has been announced so far. Who knows what surprises 2020 will hold. In a way, it would be smart of Techland to save Dying Light 2 for a less saturated year. It worked for them the last time with the first game, so why not repeat that?

Dying Light 2 is currently in development for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, with no release date at this time. You can pre-order the game now over on Amazon.

This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

February 7, 2020 10:30 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/dying-light-2-will-hopefully-be-techlands-masterpiece/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dying-light-2-will-hopefully-be-techlands-masterpiece

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nothingman · 7 years

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A few days ago a discussion and subsequent interview with David Gabriel, Marvel Comics’ Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, at their retailer summit began making the rounds, but not for the reasons the publisher was hoping. Marvel has every reason to be concerned, as their share of the market has shrunk dramatically in the last few months. Figuring out the cause of that decrease is vital for Marvel’s survival—yet the answer they’ve come to isn’t just inaccurate, it’s also offensive.

Later, Gabriel gave another interview that, in part, rehashed that hoary old proverb that diversity doesn’t sell: “What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.” And with that, comics Twitter was all a-tizzy.

The stated goal of the summit was “to hear directly from [retailers] on what they are encountering within the industry and how Marvel can work with them to make sure they know that we hear them.” This summit was only open to cherry-picked retailers and Marvel offered no means of communication to those not attending, all of which puts the whole event—and the assumptions being made as a result—into question. Although the conclusions drawn by the summit can’t be totally dismissed, they also shouldn’t be used as the foundation of a whole new business model, either. Unfortunately, though, Marvel doesn’t seem to agree.

Disregarding the sugarcoated PR update Marvel made praising diverse fan favorites, Gabriel’s comments are so patently false that, without even thinking about it, I could name a dozen current titles across mediums that instantly disprove his reasoning. With its $150 million and counting in domestic earnings, Get Out is now the highest grossing original screenplay by a debut writer/director in history; meanwhile, The Great Wall, Ghost in the Shell, Gods of Egypt, and nearly every other recent whitewashed Hollywood blockbuster has tanked. Even sticking strictly to comics, Black Panther #1 was Marvel’s highest selling solo comic of 2016. Before Civil War II, Marvel held seven of the top ten bestselling titles, three of which (Gwenpool, Black Panther, and Poe Dameron) were “diverse.” Take that, diversity naysayers.

No, the crux of the problem with Marvel’s sales isn’t diversity; the problem is Marvel itself.

Old Guard versus the New Wave

Comic book fans generally come in two flavors: the old school and the new. The hardcore traditionalist dudes (and they’re almost always white cishet men) are whinging in comic shops saying things like, “I don’t want you guys doing that stuff…One of my customers even said…he wants to get stories and doesn’t mind a message, but he doesn’t want to be beaten over the head with these things.” Then there are the modern geeks, the ones happy to take the classics alongside the contemporary and ready to welcome newbies into the fold. I’ve walked out of at least a dozen shops run by guys like that gatekeeping retailer, and yet I regularly commute across two counties just to spend my money at a shop that treats me like a person instead of a unicorn or fake geek girl (Hera help me, I hate that term). I should also point out that these old school fans aren’t even all that old school: until about the 1960s, when comics moved into specialty shops, women read comics as voraciously as men. Tradition has a very short term memory, it seems.

This gets to the point made by a woman retailer at the summit: “I think the mega question is, what customer do you want. Because your customer may be very different from my customer, and that’s the biggest problem in the industry is getting the balance of keeping the people who’ve been there for 40 years, and then getting new people in who have completely different ideas.” I’d argue there’s a customer between those extremes, one who follows beloved writers and artists across series and publishers and who places as much worth on who is telling the story as who the story is about. This is where I live, and there are plenty of other people here with me.

Blaming readers for not buying diverse comics despite the clamor for more is a false narrative. Many of the fans attracted to “diverse” titles are newbies and engage in comics very differently from longtime fans. For a variety of reasons, they tend to wait for the trades or buy digital issues rather than print. The latter is especially true for young adults who generally share digital (and yes, often pirated) issues. Yet the comics industry derives all of its value from how many print issues Diamond Distributors shipped to stores, not from how many issues, trades, or digital copies were actually purchased by readers. Every comics publisher is struggling to walk that customer-centric tightrope, but only Marvel is dumb enough to shoot themselves in the foot, then blame the rope for their fall.

Stifling the Talent

As mentioned earlier, it’s not just the characters comics fans follow around, but writers and artists, as well. Marvel doesn’t seem to think readers care all that much about artists versus writers, but I’ve picked up a ton of titles based on artwork alone that I wouldn’t normally read. Likewise, I’ve dropped or rejected series based on whether or not I like an artist. Even with the lure of Saladin Ahmed as writer, my interest in Black Bolt was strictly trade. The main reason I switched to wanting print issues? Christian Ward. Veronica Fish single-handedly kept me on issues after Fiona Staples left Archie, and her leaving is the main reason why I dropped down to trades. I’ll follow Brittney L. Williams wherever she goes, regardless of series or publisher.

So why then does Marvel think that “it’s harder to pop artists these days”? A lot of it has to do with the dearth of decent advertising (especially outside comics shops) and a lack of institutional support for those artists. Also, scattering artists from book to book before they can establish a presence on a title, turning creative feats into flashbang one-offs with little continuity, is a grave Marvel has dug for itself.

But we also have to talk about how publishers don’t let their artists talk freely about their projects. Social media contracts often make it impossible for creators to address audience concerns, as Gail Simone points out, and change the way they interact with their fans. The more the Big Two seek to control expression and discussion, both on the page and online, the more they drive creators to small presses, indie publishers, and self/web publishing. A tangential arm of this conversation is how craptacular the pay is for freelance comics creators and how publishers should be utterly ashamed of themselves. But that’s a topic for another day.

Oversaturation

There’s soooo much stuff. If longtime fans are drowning in options, think how newbies must feel staring at shelf after shelf after shelf of titles. CBR crunched the numbers and found that in a 16-month window from late 2015 to early 2017, Marvel launched 104 new superhero series. A quarter didn’t make it out of their second arc. How can anyone, especially new and/or broke readers, be expected to keep up with that? Moreover, with that many options on the table, it’s no wonder Marvel can’t establish a tentpole. They’ve diluted their own market.

At first blush, giving everyone what they want sounds good, but in practice it simply overwhelms. Right now there are two separate Captain America titles, one where Steve Rogers is a Hydra Nazi and one where Sam Wilson is an anti-SJW jerkwad. There are also two Spider-Mans, two Thors, and two Wolverines, one each for longtime fans and one for newer/diverse/casual fans. And the list goes on.

Adding a steady stream of events and crossovers isn’t helping matters. Event fatigue is a genuine problem, yet Marvel has two of ‘em lined up for 2017. Given the sales for Civil War II, I acknowledge that I’m in the smaller camp here, but I stopped buying all but my hardcore faves during that crossover event and will do the same again through Secret Empire and Generations, assuming they don’t get cancelled and relaunched. I’m not going to follow characters across half a dozen titles I don’t want to read when all I want is a good, self-contained story told by talented creators. Events often end up relaunching already strong-selling titles, sometimes with the previous team but oftentimes not, which forces the reader to decide whether to drop or keep. Given Marvel’s numbers, looks like most fans are opting to drop, and I can’t blame them.

Diversity versus Reality

When you look at the sales figures, the only way to claim diversity doesn’t sell is to have a skewed interpretation of “diversity.” Out of Marvel’s current twenty female-led series, four series—America, Ms. Marvel, Silk, and Moon Girl—star women of color, and only America has an openly queer lead character. Only America, Gamora, Hawkeye, Hulk, Ms. Marvel, and Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! (cancelled), are written by women. That’s not exactly a bountiful harvest of diversity. Plenty of comics starring or written by cishet white men get the axe over low sales, but when diversity titles are cancelled people come crawling out of the woodwork to blame diverse readers for not buying a million issues. First, we are buying titles, just usually not by the issue. Second, why should we bear the full responsibility for keeping diverse titles afloat? Non-diverse/old school fans could stand to look up from their longboxes of straight white male superheroes and subscribe to Moon Girl. Allyship is meaningless without action.

“Diversity” as a concept is a useful tool, but it can’t be the goal or the final product. It assumes whiteness (and/or maleness and/or heteronormitivity) as the default and everything else as a deviation from that. This is why diversity initiatives so often end up being quantitative—focused on the number of “diverse” individuals—rather than qualitative, committed to positive representation and active inclusion in all levels of creation and production. This kind of in-name-only diversity thinking is why Mayonnaise McWhitefeminism got cast as Major Motoko Kusanagi while actual Japanese person Rila Fukushima was used as nothing but a face mold for robot geishas.

Rather than getting hung up on diversity as a numbers game, we should be working toward inclusion and representation both on and off the page. True diversity is letting minority creators tell their own stories instead of having non-minorities creating a couple of minority characters to sprinkle in the background. It’s telling a story with characters that reflect the world. It’s accommodating for diverse backgrounds without reducing characters to stereotypes or tokens. It’s more than just acknowledging diversity in terms of race and gender/sexual identities but also disabilities, mental health, religion, and body shapes as well. It’s about building structures behind the scenes to make room for diverse creators. G. Willow Wilson said it best: “Diversity as a form of performative guilt doesn’t work. Let’s scrap the word diversity entirely and replace it with authenticity and realism. This is not a new world. This is *the world.*…It’s not “diversity” that draws those elusive untapped audiences, it’s *particularity.* This is a vital distinction nobody seems to make. This goes back to authenticity and realism.”

Alex Brown is a teen librarian, writer, geeknerdloserweirdo, and all-around pop culture obsessive who watches entirely too much TV. Keep up with her every move on Twitter and Instagram, or get lost in the rabbit warren of ships and fandoms on her Tumblr.

via Tor.com

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