Welcome to Part Two of my conversation with noted internet personality Ron "AAlgar" Watt. As we were talking about movies, and we are both gigantic nerds, we naturally segued into talking about comic book movies.
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AAlgar: I think people are going to get tired of superhero movies. I hope they give Avengers a million billion dollars before that happens.
Travis: The thing that bums me out about that is that they are finally making superhero movies that I unabashedly enjoyed. Iron Man was the first superhero movie I didn't feel slightly insulted by.
AAlgar: See, in retrospect I feel like that. But I was there for Burton's Batman and Raimi's Spidey and so on... each one was a little better than anything we had before. I think 5 years ago a movie like Green Lantern might have done well because people were excited to see comic book superheroes on the screen. But now it has to be something really special to get their attention.
Travis: That GL thing is the problem. Too many nerds have a "battered wife" syndrome where they line up for shitty movies because they have a superhero.
AAlgar: Well. Nerds our age are like that.
Travis: Those fucking people. :)
AAlgar: There are kids now who don't remember there was a time when DC was making the huge blockbusters and Marvel couldn't get anything off the ground. I mean... say what you will about those two mediocre FF movies... I would have killed for those in '94 when I was watching a bootleg of the Corman one.
Travis: Confession… I actually sort of enjoy those movies. They're completely empty calorie entertainment, but I don't hate them.
AAlgar: I think they were middle-of-the-road. I had no real problem with them. Well, the first one. I keep meaning to get to the second, but haven't yet.
Travis: The second one is amazing to me just because it has the Silver Surfer. Which is one of those things that seem insane to non-comic book fans. "A naked silver guy on a surfboard? In space? What the fuck?"
AAlgar: Well, that's the thing. Did you ever, in a million fucking years, think you'd see the Silver Surfer in a movie? Think about all the shit we sat through in the 80s and 90s. Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher. That Captain America movie where the climax chase happened on a fucking BICYCLE.
Travis: Hasslehoff as Nick Fury?
AAlgar: OH GOD. Yes. And all those dozens of projects you'd read about in Wizard or Starlog or whatever, that never quite seemed to get off the ground.
Travis: See, this is sort of what I mean. I think Marvel finally got off the ground by doing something novel - making comic book movies that weren't ashamed of comic books.
AAlgar: Again, I think it's part of a larger cultural trend. That's definitely part of it. But like... to imagine that a TV show like LOST would have six hugely popular seasons on a major network blows my mind. Or that A Game of Thrones would be a hit series of books that spawned a hit TV show. It’s a good time to be a nerd.
Travis: Didn't LOST run for seven seasons?
AAlgar: Six, but I think they did that bullshit "2 longer half seasons" thing at some point.
Travis: I was expecting a "Yes, but one of those season sucked" joke.
AAlgar: You tend (and this isn't a criticism, I know and love a lot of people like this) to be someone who focuses on the details a lot. A nitpicker if you will.
Travis: That's part and parcel of being a nerd. Or any sort of enthusiast, really.
AAlgar: See... I don't think it is. I notice details. But unless they're huge, I don't care.
Travis: But I would argue that makes you the exception rather than the rule. And it’s stuff you are a "casual" fan of that gets that lack of scrutiny.
AAlgar: Not at all. The 2009 Star Trek movie took SO MANY LIBERTIES with canon. I noticed them. But I shrugged them off because that was an awesome movie.
Travis: But the 2009 Star Trek movie was engineered in such a way to separate itself from canon completely and still leave the canon functioning independently.
AAlgar: Well, yes. That's part of why it was good. But there were other things that even the time travel story couldn't fix. Here's a huge one: Kirk jumped from cadet to captain. Age... 25, at BEST, and he's in charge of a ship. That's not how it works. But I don't want to see a movie about Lt. Kirk. So I chose not to care.
Travis: Isn't that nitpick a complaint based on knowledge that might not exist in the reboot-verse?
AAlgar: The military is the military. There's a chain of command and a rank structure. You don't graduate from college to become CEO of a company.
Travis: You do if you're Mark Zuckerberg. Admittedly, it's not like Kirk INVENTED the warp drive.
AAlgar: Granted. Still, they took liberties. But it was to serve the story, so I was okay with it. That's my larger point. I don't care if they change the details if it means we get a better story out of it.
Travis: I'm sure that there are details that would take me out of a story that wouldn't affect you the same way. But again, that's being an enthusiast of any stripe. Example: My mom was a horseback rider. So watching westerns with her as a kid was a nightmare, as she pointed out who could and couldn't ride. My dad was a cop. Watching cop movies with him usually devolved into a discussion of procedure, and how they were doing it wrong.
AAlgar: Ungh. But back to comic book movies. I get into them because they distill the ideas down to their basic components. There isn't 50 years of history I have to memorize to enjoy it.
Travis: It's not the distillation that bothers me. It's when that distillation leads to a version of the character or the comic that is completely alien to the source material. Maybe "completely" is extreme. Daredevil is an example. You liked it.
AAlgar: See, I didn't hate Daredevil. I didn't love it. But I had no attachment to the character and it was an okay enough way to pass 2 hours.
Travis: I HATED it. Because in the first five minutes they have Daredevil throwing a dude under a train.
AAlgar: Is that not a thing he does? I seriously don't know.
Travis: No. He's very much in the "I don't kill people" tradition.
AAlgar: I read Bendis' run, which was mostly about him dealing with the identity thing. And then suddenly poems about vaginas when David Mack did one.
Travis: Black Kingpin? Doesn't bother me. Weird head scar Bullseye. No problem. Alias Garner as Elektra? OK. But when he kills a guy five minutes in, I'm like, BULLSHIT!
AAlgar: Okay, that's fair. How did you feel about Raimi's Spidey?
Travis: Liked the first one. Loved the second. Hated the third.
AAlgar: That's roughly the same for me, though I saw some good in 3. That was 2 decent movies that collided into a horrible train wreck. But... to me, they got the character ALL wrong.
Travis: My problem with 3 is that I wanted Topher Grace and Bryce Dallas Howard to be playing Peter and MJ. I can’t stand Kirsten Dunst. I keep going back to that Penny-Arcade strip.
AAlgar: Heh. I like her okay, But that was a funny strip. Now, to me, Spidey is a nerdy kid with a horrible life where everything goes wrong. Then he puts on a mask, jumps around and turns into a smartass.
Travis: What didn't they get?
AAlgar: The one thing they did REALLY wrong for me was, Spidey was mostly quiet or serious with the mask on. He needs to be making jokes. ALL THE TIME.
Travis: He did make some jokes.
AAlgar: Not NEARLY enough. He's a trickster character. He should be fucking obnoxious when he's fighting.
Travis: I'm not sure the producers have figured out how to have someone emote through a full face mask.
AAlgar: Spidey for me, and this is a personal interpretation here... Spidey is the story of me on the internet. I'm shy and scared and have no self-esteem... but give me this power and I suddenly have all the confidence in the world. I always related to Spidey for that. He puts on a mask and becomes someone else. He can forget his horrible life and have fun and make terrible jokes. I just don't think that showed through in the movies. Yes, it's hard to talk through a mask. But fucking find a way. That's what he does.
Travis: See, my interpretation is that all of the jokes are a defense mechanism for a guy who is doing something he doesn't want to be doing, and is scared shitless the whole time. It’s not "with great power comes a lot of fun". Sure, he loves web swinging, but when he has to fight Electro, it's high school and Flash Thompson all over again, only this time Flash Thompson might LITERALLY kill hm.
AAlgar: I think that's part of it too. But I always saw the escapism element of it too.
Travis: Yeah, but that's us projecting. That's why Spider-Man works so well. Because it's the story of the nerd who makes good.
AAlgar: It is. But regardless, it's an essential part of the character to me. His goofy one-liners. And it wasn't very much a part of the movie. I still enjoyed them.
Travis: Speaking of Spidey - I hear he’s a gay Muslim with Tourette’s syndrome now.
AAlgar: Oh yeah, I was just reading that story before we started talking. I immediately changed my voter registration in outrage… I'm kidding, of course… I'm not registered to vote.
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That's all, folks. Thanks for indulging me as I nerd-talked with my friend. I've actually had a couple people already tell me, "Hey, I have opinions on things, too. Can I do that with you?" which likely means you"ll see me do this again down the road.
Tune in next time, when I will be discussing Marvel's FEAR ITSELF event, and why I think it's the best crossover Marvel has done in years.
Hugs and kisses,
(The)Travis
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