This is the one thing I respect about Snyder's DC films: at least they embrace the cosmic zaniness. Of course, their defense mechanism is throwing in heaps of melodramatic pseudo-philosophy, but at least the cosmic nonsense stays intact.
It's all cringe at this point, though. I'm good without superhero movies for the rest of my life.
I will agree on that for Snyder. I can't connect with his DC stuff because I'm not much of a DC fan in the general sense. Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg, the Martian Manhunter, whatever; I don't much like them. I love Green Lantern and Batman, and I'm here for the New Gods (I've mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with them, which basically means I like the idea more than the execution, but still like the actual books well enough), but really DC wise I'm much more of a Vertigo/WildStorm fan than I am a DC one. So no matter the tone, I'll never be able to really connect with them, and it's why I don't spend hours ranting about them on a dolly forum like I do with the Marvel flicks.
Snyder's problem is that he's so obsessed with trying to add gravity to the situation that he goes to the opposite direction, and his aesthetic eye falters because he's stuck in the "grim n' gritty" phase, which most definitely doesn't mesh well with the concept of gods and myths. He tries bless his heart, with homages to classic cinema and literature and all that, but he can't make it click because he's not internalising them but merely trying to add them on top. The MCU has a coating of plastic and pleather, but Snyder is trying to tackle both "myths" (which as I've before, I find rather insulting when applied to capes) and some edgy 00s trenchcoat aesthetic, which clashes completely. The point of gods and myths is that they're larger than life, creatures of sublime light and darkness and all that. Snyder, despite his good eye, sucks all the grandeur and you're left with a mildling blandness. There's a middle ground between the MCU's quipfests and his self-absorbed and clunky flicks, but nobody's come close to it.
Yeah, I'm really tired of this approach.
I have a similar gripe with the new Doom games. It's not enough that the subject matter is the kind of thing you'd see painted on the side of a van, we need NPCs to remind the player of how silly the world is. No one who plays Doom beyond the age of 14 takes it seriously. Its inherent ridiculousness is levity enough.
It's just trite at this point. If you have any faith in your product, play it straight.
I bought DOOM back in 2016 but my rig couldn't handle it well and I didn't come back to it when I upgraded due to time constraints. It took me literally a decade to finish Human Revolution and I've only played an hour of Mankind Divided. My videogaming days are dead. But I have seen enough of Eternal to get your point. It's a result of the original Doomguy becoming a meme of his own, from the games themselves to the "huge guts" licensed comic and then snowballing to what it is now. It's all parody. It's like with WH40K where yes it was a grimdark parody revelling in its setting, but now it's a parody of
itself which means that it's total bull.
We reached a point where everyone is trying to appeal to every single demographic in order to rake in more and more cash, and thus despite some superficial coatings, nothing has a voice or identity and is varying levels of derivative pop culture schlock.
All I can say, my friend, is that there is good TV and good films out there. Obviously with so much volume, and so many productions churning out original programming, it's hard to sift through all of it, but there are still gems outside the franchise market.
Midnight Mass was fantastic. A very compact 7 episodes.
The Great on Hulu
Severance that gave us the gift of bringing back Christopher Walken as well.
Arcane for animation. As well as Primal.
Another way to see it, is that the MCU franchise has created an entire new generation of kids who will become curious and look for comics, but even older comics and origin stories. In that regard, all the MCU fans have opened up a whole new world for an entire new generation. I still see that as a good thing.
I look for smaller wins whenever possible. But we are each different. Merry Xmas, my friend.
Oh yeah, there are some good stuff out there. Less than there were some years ago even, but still. I did binge Midnight Mass this Halloween and while I have some complaints, it did have a set atmosphere and didn't feel like a dragged out filler show.
Ditto for Severance and Arcane. For the time being I'm eagerly awaiting for Succession, Barry and Servant to return. So sure, there's some good entertainment out there.
It's just that as a fan who dropped a lot of cash and time on such things, to finally see them hit the mainstream and be tantalised by possibillities of merch and new comics and so on for these lesser known characters, only to have them become unrecognisable to me, it ticks me off. I spent a decade going to the Tony Stark tags and seeing "fans" who'd never read a single issue devote their blogs to fanfics of mermaid Stark x Steve with Parker as their MPREG kid, instead of the cool fanart I was looking for. But I didn't care because with every new flick I had more Iron Man toys, the possibility of an Iron Man game increased, etc. Now I know that I'll never get the 300$ HE doll I was dreaming of, or the Namor one and so on and so forth. I know I'll never get the great Kang Saga I had built up in my head, and if I want a doll I'll have to try modding and buying extras. The actual Kang is still in the books, but it pisses me off nonetheless.
I suppose the solution is to stop caring too much, and true, I've set endmarks in my comic reading. Secret Wars was the end of canon for me, and I'm not collecting anything beyond that. Not because it was perfect, but it was a good stopgap and nothing else since then has been good enough. But in these days the high end merch is solely reserved for the movie versions, and if they suck, I'm out of luck. The 6" Marvel Legends Comic Kang just isn't enough for me. I wanted the dolls because as I've mentioned before, my shelves are my canon. I look at the figures and make up my own perfect stories. But if I can't get the dolls of my go-to characters, well, my collection feels incomplete and the "project" pointless. It's not "important" in the grand scheme of things, but still, it buggers me.
Either way, Merry Christmas back to you friend!
