Hollywood Directors distate for the MCU...

[Patrick Gerard]

What are you suggesting? I thought originally you were saying those movies werent their visions but more a collaborative effort. Which would be true for half the MCU movies where they are just a gun for hire. But the two directors you singled out are 100% the vision and driving force behind they're movies. And now your saying Gunn doesnt require top billing or demand credit for these movies? Think I'm missing your point. If you mean GOTG is called a Marvel movie rather then a James Gunn movie. While a Scorsese movie is billed as a Scorsese movie. Well that's true Gunns was 100% unknown to the general public prior to GOTG. Also no matter who does a Marvel movie, the Mavel brand will get top billing. Doesnt Matter if it's a Gunn/Waititi/Coogler who executed their own visions or a director for hire.

I’m saying Gunn/Waititi/Coogler imbed their visions into these movies but aren’t treating these movies as an ego platform.

The Russos put their heart and soul into the TV sitcoms they did too.

There’s putting your vision INTO something which isn’t the same as presenting something as your vision.

Gunn creates scenes and chemistry between the Guardians and works in his life philosophy.

But I feel like the auteur approach is really to remake a thing completely. The thing where you hear directors say that they want to throw out everything they didn’t make so they are the full creative source.

Like the guy (was it Peters? Goyer?) who suggested remaking Adam Strange as a Harry Potter style movie about a young teenage boy and try to make it a name only remake to the extent possible so that the creativity all flows from you as the director.

[Midvillian1322]

I’m saying Gunn/Waititi/Coogler imbed their visions into these movies but aren’t treating these movies as an ego platform.

The Russos put their heart and soul into the TV sitcoms they did too.

There’s putting your vision INTO something which isn’t the same as presenting something as your vision.

Gunn creates scenes and chemistry between the Guardians and works in his life philosophy.

But I feel like the auteur approach is really to remake a thing completely. The thing where you hear directors say that they want to throw out everything they didn’t make so they are the full creative source.

Like the guy (was it Peters? Goyer?) who suggested remaking Adam Strange as a Harry Potter style movie about a young teenage boy and try to make it a name only remake to the extent possible so that the creativity all flows from you as the director.

Ok I get what your trying to say now...

So Guardians barely resembles the comics at all past the characters names and appearance. And Scorsese has adapted Books on several occasions. He doesnt change everything about them when he does it either. Especialy since they were "Autobiographys" he adapted. So that definition of an Auteur is an impossible standard for almost every director.

[Patrick Gerard]

He's basically saying that they aren't auteur projects, which I think isn't that controversial. That is he is speaking broadly. GotG is probably an auteur film.

GotG straddles a line but I’d argue that the Russos were as involved in their work on Community, Arrested Development, and Marvel movies as Gunn was with GotG.

GotG did inherit a lot of rhythm from Gunn. I’d compare it to Reitman and Ghostbusters or Zemeckis and Back to the Future. Those were influenced by the director to a point that they’d be entirely different movies otherwise. But I don’t feel like the screenwriters or source material were erased or pushed aside for the director. The biggest instance of that with GotG is Quill’s personality and his backstory but everyone else more or less is who they are. Maybe not Mantis. It was an artful collage.

And you know it probably is closer to Scorsese’s ideal given that Al Pacino was a big fan and wanted to be in one of the sequels.

But I don’t think Gunn came in eager to erase any vision that wasn’t his or to make a perfect homage solely to things he loved (Lynch pays lots of respect to Judy Garland and Old Hollywood but he only tips his hat to what he loves).

Gunn had a shared vision and was trying to create a platform for other people to also create.

[Patrick Gerard]

Ok I get what your trying to say now...

So Guardians barely resembles the comics at all past the characters names and appearance. And Scorsese has adapted Books on several occasions. He doesnt change everything about them when he does it either. Especialy since they were "Autobiographys" he adapted. So that definition of an Auteur is an impossible standard for almost every director.

See though: I don’t think Gunn would agree that it doesn’t represent the comics. It represents how he read the comics.

That’s kind of like Grant Morrison. I don’t think he’s hardly ever set out to reinvent a character. He just generally figures out a way to express what he sees when he reads them. Animal Man as a big exception there.

There’s a difference between me, for example, writing Quicksilver as gay because I always thought he was even if nobody else thought that and me writing Quicksilver as a twelve year old jewel thief because I want to pay homage to Dennis the Menace and Home Alone in an oblique way.

I think Gunn was approaching this much like an umpire, calling it likes he sees it, as opposed to a lot of tinkering, aside from Quill’s personality and parentage. And the personality all flowed from the idea that calling your team the “Guardians of the Galaxy” means that person has to be a semi-charismatic jackass. There is no honest way to arrive at that name otherwise.

[Midvillian1322]

See though: I don’t think Gunn would agree that it doesn’t represent the comics. It represents how he read the comics.

That’s kind of like Grant Morrison. I don’t think he’s hardly ever set out to reinvent a character. He just generally figures out a way to express what he sees when he reads them. Animal Man as a big exception there.

There’s a difference between me, for example, writing Quicksilver as gay because I always thought he was even if nobody else thought that and me writing Quicksilver as a twelve year old jewel thief because I want to pay homage to Dennis the Menace and Home Alone in an oblique way.

I think Gunn was approaching this much like an umpire, calling it likes he sees it, as opposed to a lot of tinkering, aside from Quill’s personality and parentage. And the personality all flowed from the idea that calling your team the “Guardians of the Galaxy” means that person has to be a semi-charismatic jackass. There is no honest way to arrive at that name otherwise.

I just think by that definition you can nitpick a bunch of Directors films and call them not Cinema. So i dont think it's a good defense of Scorsese's comments. Cause it could be applied to some of his films as good as they are.

As far as Gunns writing process. Apparently he didnt want to do the film becuase he didnt think Rocket could work. He thought it was like putting scooby doo in star wars. But he loved the GOTG comics so he went to work and told himself if he can make Rocket work as a character. Then he would do it. He thought if Rocket was this tragic animal who was experimented on and made the way he is. Tortured and then disregarded and not wanted, it would work. So your right in that regard he didnt look how he can reinvent Rocket. he found a way to make the character work and keep that angry/******* personality from the comics that is all most people really know about him. But it's a real fine line between those two different things your talking about. Having seen interviews with Jordan Belfot. Scorsese didnt reinvent that character he just took the guys life and book and made it work in a film. And he did it wonderfully and made an amazing movie that it defiently Cinema.

[Patrick Gerard]

I just think by that definition you can nitpick a bunch of Directors films and call them not Cinema. So i dont think it's a good defense of Scorsese's comments. Cause it could be applied to some of his films as good as they are.

As far as Gunns writing process. Apparently he didnt want to do the film becuase he didnt think Rocket could work. He thought it was like putting scooby doo in star wars. But he loved the GOTG comics so he went to work and told himself if he can make Rocket work as a character. Then he would do it. He thought if Rocket was this tragic animal who was experimented on and made the way he is. Tortured and then disregarded and not wanted, it would work. So your right in that regard he didnt look how he can reinvent Rocket. he found a way to make the character work and keep that angry/******* personality from the comics that is all most people really know about him. But it's a real fine line between those two different things your talking about. Having seen interviews with Jordan Belfot. Scorsese didnt reinvent that character he just took the guys life and book and made it work in a film. And he did it wonderfully and made an amazing movie that it defiently Cinema.

Fair. I think from the outside, very independent filmmakers particularly of the 70s, probably look at a studio driven method and fear for their way of doing things.

It might be a well founded fear. It might be ill founded. It might make better movies sometimes. It might not.

I think for a lot of these filmmakers, they really only know what they know. Scorsese should have some awareness of how Joker worked. He knows what he hears at parties and sees in the trades. His closest knowledge of the franchise stuff is probably George Lucas and I suspects he sees Lucas as a guy who wasted a life by not doing more stuff like American Graffiti and subjecting himself to a lot of heartache and meaningless work (from Scorsese’s POV).

Whenever these guys talk about genre franchise vs. art house stuff, they’re really talking about their weird friend George and how they don’t understand why he gets mad about Ewok fur and weird religions he made up when he clearly had the skill to be a competitor at the kind of cinema they did.

The question of Marvel Movies is, I imagine, intimately tied with “Why is my friend George Lucas so weird and why isn’t he happier?” from these guys’ POV.