Scorsese explains why he thinks Marvel movies aren't cinema

[Farealmer]

The MCU was never intended to be cinema, it’s intention is to be dumb popcorn entertainment to sell merchandise and comic books. I don’t understand how anyone can argue the MCU and many recent Disney movies is cinema. Disney makes brand movies, they don’t make cinema.
Saying the MCU is not cinema is not an insult to the MCU, it’s the reality.

And others disagree, the very nature of any art whether cinema or otherwise is that if even one person thinks it's art, it's art. The only case could be made is if the creator themselves didn't believe it to be art. But a third party, especially one without any input in the creation itself has no authority to objectively declare it art/cinema or not. They can only speak to whether they consider it as such, but not as a reality. And if someone disagrees with someone else calling it not cinema when they think it is then it looks like an insult, hence the controversy.

[Kirby101]

I don’t even know what this Scorsese controversy is about. The MCU was never intended to be cinema, it’s intention is to be dumb popcorn entertainment to sell merchandise and comic books. I don’t understand how anyone can argue the MCU and many recent Disney movies is cinema. Disney makes brand movies, they don’t make cinema.
Saying the MCU is not cinema is not an insult to the MCU, it’s the reality. Even the other major studios don’t make a lot of cinema. Most of the cinema these days come from small independent studios.
The Scorsese comments is really a non issue.

You keep saying that, but it's still not true. They were meant to be fun, exciting, well crafted movies to sell movie tickets. And they succeeded immensely.
And if they aren't cinema, then 90% of all movies aren't cinema. But I don't define cinema that way.

[Kirby101]

How was Thor: The Dark World About aging and death? Or did you mean Ragnarok?

Frigga is killed in Dark World.

[Beaddle]

Funny that Lou Ferrigno complains About Endgame being too "extreme with the spaceships, the shooting, the outer space". I still remember watching his two Hercules movies. Compared to that Endgame was tame. Doesn't help that he thinks that there is only one Version of the character.


Perhaps they should do an adaption of the immortal Hulk or the ultimate version. But I think than he would complain, that they made "his" Hulk too dark^^

I never saw his Hercules , if it was set in the stone age with arrows , bows and horses then it should not be directly compared to Endgame.

Endgame like all MCU movies are too over the top its fake and unrealistic to look at. their entertaining factor does rely in CGI and green screen not the story like Lou said of extremeness, sometimes the CGI is so overpowering you don't see the humans. which does echo Scorsese or even Jennifer Anston take on marvel and green screens.

Looking back, I wish MCU has brought in Spielberg to make the Avengers films and paid him whatever he wanted. If that has happened films like Endgame could have been the Jurassic Park of comic films from an artistic standpoint there would be no scorsese , Lou or woo to dismiss this films as nothing more but happy meals. its just sad really as a marvel comic fan when you hear folks like Lou show his disappointment and imply MCU films are mindless with no story or life lesson. its not too late they can bring Spielberg for X-Men and Feige and Disney can take a step back.

[Prof. Warren]

Looking back, I wish MCU has brought in Spielberg to make the Avengers films and paid him whatever he wanted. If that has happened films like Endgame could have been the Jurassic Park of comic films from an artistic standpoint there would be no scorsese , Lou or woo to dismiss this films as nothing more but happy meals. its just sad really as a marvel comic fan when you hear folks like Lou show his disappointment and imply MCU films are mindless with no story or life lesson. its not too late they can bring Spielberg for X-Men and Feige and Disney can take a step back.

Literally everything in the above is laughable.

Spielberg on the Avengers? No thanks. A great director, of course, but he has his own stuff going on. He's not going to want to jump into a major franchise that he hasn't developed on his own. And as talented as Spielberg is, Whedon and the Russo's had more of a feel for the material than Spielberg ever would have.

And who would ever want Endgame to be "the Jurassic Park of comic book movies?" Since when has anyone looked at the the Jurassic series as a benchmark of quality? No one ever. Outside of the technical accomplishments of the original, there's nothing that has distinguished the series and there's been more bad than good entries, including Spielberg's disappointing The Lost World.

And absolutely no one with a brain at Disney wants Feige to "step back." When you achieve the kind of success that Feige has, they only want you to do more, which is exactly what Feige is doing.

[WebLurker]

It’s a movie about stuff MCU and superhero stories are incapable of dealing with: aging and death.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I never saw his Hercules , if it was set in the stone age with arrows , bows and horses then it should not be directly compared to Endgame.

Endgame like all MCU movies are too over the top its fake and unrealistic to look at. their entertaining factor does rely in CGI and green screen not the story like Lou said of extremeness, sometimes the CGI is so overpowering you don't see the humans..

No, sorry, that's bullshit.

RDJ made Iron Man with his acting. As did Chris Evans with Cap, Paul Rudd with Ant-man and so on. The acting isn't perfect across the board, but it's better than the vast majority of stuff out there.

If you think the MCU doesn't rely on the actor's abilities, then you've clearly never seen the movies themselves.

[Powerboy]

That's precisely the problem. By this definition, every movie that goes for mass appeal or most of them are therefore not art. But it's really just the success of the MCU that is causing it to be singled out. You really don't need to go to all this trouble of writing a detailed, complex plot or good dialogue or having good actors if the only thing you care about is making money. "Baywatch" (at least the show) proved you don't need anything but good looking women in bikinis if all you want is success. Plenty of '80s action movies proved you just need action and fights.

It's ridiculous to say that none of the writers or directors or actors went into this with the intention of producing something good, something artistic. Did they consider commercial success? Of course. But Disney putting movies in lots of theaters equaling the movies not being art is silly. As to the formula part, well, so every television show made back in the days of episodic television was not in any way art? Because people can't have it both ways.

And, again, if the MCU had a so-so success, nobody would be saying it wasn't art. It's being singled out from other movies with mass appeal because it is so phenomenally successful.

[WebLurker]

And, again, if the MCU had a so-so success, nobody would be saying it wasn't art. It's being singled out from other movies with mass appeal because it is so phenomenally successful.

So, Vision was right?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That's precisely the problem. By this definition, every movie that goes for mass appeal or most of them are therefore not art.

Which is usually true.

But it's really just the success of the MCU that is causing it to be singled out.

Success does bring baggage with it. Dealing with that baggage is one of the signs of how much you deserve that success. George Lucas is famously thick skinned, generous, diffident, a very good sport who has both supported and encouraged parodies of Star Wars, doesn’t get on his high horse when the likes of Gary Kurtz and others talked smack about him. Spielberg is similar. Disney MCU though throw hissy fits from Bob Iger downwards which speaks to insecurity about the fact that deep down they suspect, like Thor does with Gorr the God Butcher, that their critic is right.

You really don't need to go to all this trouble of writing a detailed, complex plot or good dialogue or having good actors if the only thing you care about is making money.

It’s debatable if the dialogue in MCU is good. It’s quippy, deflating of drama, and generally trite.

It's ridiculous to say that none of the writers or directors or actors went into this with the intention of producing something good, something artistic.

Everyone has high hopes of course but there are limits in terms of material and medium and genre. Likewise I think some of these filmmakers if they are being honest would say that they made the movies to eventually make more personal stuff. And some of them are doing that. I am sure Nolan would prefer being remembered first and foremost as the director of Inception, Dunkirk, Memento rather than the Batman stuff.

[Username taken]

Sorry, the Hulk TV show was mostly boring. I don't need the MCU to be an Afternoon Special. The only backlash is a few posters who don't like superhero movies. The general public continues to love these movies.

It's not like some people don't like superhero movies, it's more that we have some people that like DC or other studios movies more.

[Beaddle]

The colours and tone of the film is wrong to handle ageing and death properly. this is what kid friendly Disney films are about when they try to tackle serious issues. kind of reminds me of Pixar's UP when we see the colourful balloons fly , Good for pixar, bad for mcu. if you want the proper marvel take on aging and death, Read the death of wolverine comics and watch logan. that is the real marvel at its best. this Disney makeover marvel is just restricted to pixar kinds but Scorsese would never attack Pixar because Pixar is not live action with human beings.

No, sorry, that's bullshit.

RDJ made Iron Man with his acting. As did Chris Evans with Cap, Paul Rudd with Ant-man and so on. The acting isn't perfect across the board, but it's better than the vast majority of stuff out there.

If you think the MCU doesn't rely on the actor's abilities, then you've clearly never seen the movies themselves.

Usually this is not what I hear, The two Chris's are usually slammed for their acting skills especially Helmsworth and the recent Fat Thor gag is not going to help matters. RDJ was always about MCU not appreciating his acting talents. Is there any other actor who has made a comic character so iconic in the past 10 years than RDJ apart from Hugh Jackman? RDJ had to carry films with lukewarm scripts because Disney were throwing out the actual scripts for iron man movies because they were seen as too mature. that was marvel's loss and a total disrespect of the comics.

Ant-Man, I don't know what he does in the movie, this is one franchise everyone agrees is the weakest of the MCU. Its not about the acting abilities, scorsese directly said so, its about the writing a of mcu, there is not much to do in the mcu because the plot of their films are not heavy, so the actors are limited. scoreses directly said this.
Here is the Scorsese on actors in the MCU
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/martin-...atic-universe/

"Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being."

Under the circumstances, that is what happens when Marvel chooses not to play out a real plot line of Tony stark's dirty deeds like when they threw out the demon in the bottle storyline in iron man 3 or when they took out most of the acting from Iron man 2 with Rouke who originally said, whiplash was more character study in the original film until marvel cut everything out.

Its just funny that everything Scorsese is saying about the acting circumstances in marvel films, marvel is at fault. Its not as if the actors can't act, its that they don't get to act much in mcu movies. the only marvel films were their any heavy acting were some of the x-men movies and earlier spiderman films.

[Beaddle]

It's ridiculous to say that none of the writers or directors or actors went into this with the intention of producing something good, something artistic. Did they consider commercial success? Of course. But Disney putting movies in lots of theaters equaling the movies not being art is silly. As to the formula part, well, so every television show made back in the days of episodic television was not in any way art? Because people can't have it both ways.

And why Scorsese is right about today's blockbusters and the theme park vibe and its not just about marvel. have you seen the baby Yoda stuff? the marketing is beyond genius, the baby yoda action figure is now more talked about than the actual show on Disney plus. That is a film studio choosing commercial success over something artistic. weird that this killed the comic blockbuster genre in 1997 after batman and robin as the cast felt the movies focused too much on the commercial sucess of selling toys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%26_Robin_(film)
22 years later, this has now become the normal for today's blockbusters, where you can succeed by putting commercial success over something artistic.

[Agent Z]

Frigga is killed in Dark World.

That doesn't make it a movie about death.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

That doesn't make it a movie about death.

Well it wasn’t supposed to be...