1/6 Hot Toys BW Movie Taskmaster

[matticus]

https://www.themarysue.com/black-widow-taskmaster-disappointment/

 

[WolfBoy]

The MCU has peaked and it only makes sense. Something can only continue to climb so far before the inevitable drop. We are seeing it play out now in real-time with Black Widow and the MCU TV properties.

I'm curious what the BO numbers will be for this film...assuming Disney releases those numbers. I don't expect Shang-Chi or Eternals to do anywhere close to a billion.

What drop though?

All the tv shows have been critical hits and had good streaming numbers on Disney+.
Black Widows box office the last few days has been excellent, especially amidst a pandemic and reviews are good too.

 

[Hologram AI]

Just give me a Spider-Man PS4 Taskmaster figure Hot Toys. Not whatever pointless "character" they did with the BW movie.

 

[matticus]

Some people just need a better education:

 

[subzro]

What drop though?

All the tv shows have been critical hits and had good streaming numbers on Disney+.
Black Widows box office the last few days has been excellent, especially amidst a pandemic and reviews are good too.

Yep Disney+ is doing extremely well with everything going on.

 

[Victοr]

I've never gotten this "nobody knows X/Y/Z character so it's okay to **** them up" mentality. Practically no normal member of society has ever heard of half the stuff we used to discuss in boards. People bring up Deadpool, but Deadpool exploded in popularity literally about a decade ago. The stars aligned and the Way run made him popular, but at the expense of his original characterization. The Deadpool that became popular had nothing to do with the actual Deadpool comic fans liked from the Kelly run, Cable & Deadpool and Agent X. I can't be the only one who remembers 2009 when Deadpool was turned into a mute patchwork doll, and of course everyone complained, loudly, until they fixed it. But now apparently we can't say "this adaptation isn't faithful enough" because... reasons. "Entitled fans" or whatever. No **** I'm "entitled", I've been dropping money on these things for decades. It's a free wold, I should damn well be able to complain if the product that is billed as an adaptation turns out to be a poor one. Execs gonna Exec, but I don't see the problem with people venting.

I seriously don't get this. It used to be that forums and boards were the one place where you could go and vent about minute details the average person didn't care for, but all the geeks understood because everyone had one or two lesser known fan-favourites and they got it. However, now that's "uncool" and we've got people defending [Insert Billion Dollar Corporation] completely screwing over the source material in an adaptation for... no real reason. There are tons of comics, vidya and whatever characters I've never engaged with. But I want them to be translated as faithfully as possible, because somewhere out there are 100 people who do care and that's their favourite character. What do I have to gain by going "lmao, nobody cares"? I like plenty of C/D-Listers and would like to see them adapted the way I know them. Otherwise, what's the point?

And I know someone's going to bring up someone like Negasonic Teenage Warhead or something. Prior to DP, NTW had literally a single appearance and she died in it. She had no character, lore or history to ruin. Taskmaster was a longstanding Marvel character with decades worth of stories and ties to every part of the universe. He was appearing in cartoons and games constantly. There's a difference between reworking a character with 5 appearances in their name, like Kaecilius, and completely butchering a character with decades worth of stories. There's nothing that was accomplished by reimagining Taskmaster like that, instead of coming up with an OC. Or Hell, pick some character with 2 appearances and reimagine them. No, Taskmistress happened solely because they wanted the Taskmaster branding. They wanted to raise the stakes by having BW go up against a well-liked C-Lister. Spider-Man and Batman are S-Listers, Wolverine and Hulk were A-Listes at one point, Iron Man was a B-Lister turned A-Lister, Taskmaster is a C-Lister, someone like Shang Chi and the GotG were D-Listers, and then you have Kaluu and the such that are Z-Listers.

I'm not telling anyone to care, vent, or go on a crusade. I'm not even telling you to not like the reimagining, on the off-chance you're one of the people who liked Taskmistress and Mutepool. I just don't get what purpose those "lmao, get over it nerd, nobody cares" comments serve. Why would anyone defend the idiotic decisions of out of touch executives on a board about nerd properties? Why is it now "cool" to just accept whatever's served to you? With this mentality we'd never had gotten Reynolds' Deadpool and that's a fact. It was complaining and petioning that got us those movies. But that's taboo now, so bring it on, I can't wait for Pansexual Trans Blasian Autistic Literal Cyclops. I mean, only ******* nerds and **** liked Cyclops lmao who cares.

We're on a forum about 300$ dolls. We've got people spending 1K$ on plastic statues of their favourite strongman in tights. Nobody's above discussions of comic book faithfulness in adaptations, full stop. I want the things I read in the pages/played in the games/whatever, to be translated faithfully. Anything that deviates to a large degree, I will dislike. It's the way things are. It's cheap entertainment skating on looks, and if the looks aren't good, I won't care.

 

[chrisstbh]

I agree but it would had to be mutant powers enabled and then we would all be complaining that everyone now has mutant powers lol

I’m actually surprised that the MCU didn’t go with an enhanced BW, one of my favorite depictions in the books, at least It would have explained how she could have survived what she physically went through in this movie sheesh she was made of rubber in this!

Then again an enhanced BW would have survived Vorimer unless Vorimer nullified powers.

His power comes from a super soldier serum in the comics iirc. MCU has a clown car full of super soldiers right now.

Plus we’re just expected to believe Hawkeye has superhuman aim and reflexes without any enhancements.

 

[gmoney5000]

I've never gotten this "nobody knows X/Y/Z character so it's okay to **** them up" mentality. Practically no normal member of society has ever heard of half the stuff we used to discuss in boards. People bring up Deadpool, but Deadpool exploded in popularity literally about a decade ago. The stars aligned and the Way run made him popular, but at the expense of his original characterization. The Deadpool that became popular had nothing to do with the actual Deadpool comic fans liked from the Kelly run, Cable & Deadpool and Agent X. I can't be the only one who remembers 2009 when Deadpool was turned into a mute patchwork doll, and of course everyone complained, loudly, until they fixed it. But now apparently we can't say "this adaptation isn't faithful enough" because... reasons. "Entitled fans" or whatever. No **** I'm "entitled", I've been dropping money on these things for decades. It's a free wold, I should damn well be able to complain if the product that is billed as an adaptation turns out to be a poor one. Execs gonna Exec, but I don't see the problem with people venting.

I seriously don't get this. It used to be that forums and boards were the one place where you could go and vent about minute details the average person didn't care for, but all the geeks understood because everyone had one or two lesser known fan-favourites and they got it. However, now that's "uncool" and we've got people defending [Insert Billion Dollar Corporation] completely screwing over the source material in an adaptation for... no real reason. There are tons of comics, vidya and whatever characters I've never engaged with. But I want them to be translated as faithfully as possible, because somewhere out there are 100 people who do care and that's their favourite character. What do I have to gain by going "lmao, nobody cares"? I like plenty of C/D-Listers and would like to see them adapted the way I know them. Otherwise, what's the point?

And I know someone's going to bring up someone like Negasonic Teenage Warhead or something. Prior to DP, NTW had literally a single appearance and she died in it. She had no character, lore or history to ruin. Taskmaster was a longstanding Marvel character with decades worth of stories and ties to every part of the universe. He was appearing in cartoons and games constantly. There's a difference between reworking a character with 5 appearances in their name, like Kaecilius, and completely butchering a character with decades worth of stories. There's nothing that was accomplished by reimagining Taskmaster like that, instead of coming up with an OC. Or Hell, pick some character with 2 appearances and reimagine them. No, Taskmistress happened solely because they wanted the Taskmaster branding. They wanted to raise the stakes by having BW go up against a well-liked C-Lister. Spider-Man and Batman are S-Listers, Wolverine and Hulk were A-Listes at one point, Iron Man was a B-Lister turned A-Lister, Taskmaster is a C-Lister, someone like Shang Chi and the GotG were D-Listers, and then you have Kaluu and the such that are Z-Listers.

I'm not telling anyone to care, vent, or go on a crusade. I'm not even telling you to not like the reimagining, on the off-chance you're one of the people who liked Taskmistress and Mutepool. I just don't get what purpose those "lmao, get over it nerd, nobody cares" comments serve. Why would anyone defend the idiotic decisions of out of touch executives on a board about nerd properties? Why is it now "cool" to just accept whatever's served to you? With this mentality we'd never had gotten Reynolds' Deadpool and that's a fact. It was complaining and petioning that got us those movies. But that's taboo now, so bring it on, I can't wait for Pansexual Trans Blasian Autistic Literal Cyclops. I mean, only ******* nerds and **** liked Cyclops lmao who cares.

We're on a forum about 300$ dolls. We've got people spending 1K$ on plastic statues of their favourite strongman in tights. Nobody's above discussions of comic book faithfulness in adaptations, full stop. I want the things I read in the pages/played in the games/whatever, to be translated faithfully. Anything that deviates to a large degree, I will dislike. It's the way things are. It's cheap entertainment skating on looks, and if the looks aren't good, I won't care.

Yo this is a solid rant!

 

[jye4ever]

His power comes from a super soldier serum in the comics iirc. MCU has a clown car full of super soldiers right now.

Plus we’re just expected to believe Hawkeye has superhuman aim and reflexes without any enhancements.

TM was already gifted as a child no?

The tech used in the movie is not that off base because TM did utilize video footage to sharpen his skills so the movie was not wrong for showing that part.

But by making TM 100% reliant on tech and then changing his origin into the girl really crosses the line into why even bother using that character in the first place.

2 ways they could have went with this TM to make it more interesting but they didn’t:

1. The big reveal be that even AFTER Taskmistress is sprayed with the mind control antidote and removed from the suit she was STILL capable of mimicking! But we are getting into mutant scenarios here and the MCU is not there yet.

Or

2. Show her body being tortured by the mimicking technology giving her character more depth than just muh daughter has a silly burned face that doesn’t resemble real burned faces who require face transplants.

As is she is a boring 2D character where the mimicking really meant nothing to the plot.

I also would like to add that I went into this movie fully expecting TM to be Blonsky who I had been believing that for the better part of the year which then changed to Melina but never the daughter.

 

[matticus]

Remember Ghost? Yeah nobody does cause they gender swapped that character and pissed off those fans.

 

[chrisstbh]

TM was already gifted as a child no?

The tech used in the movie is not that off base because TM did utilize video footage to sharpen his skills so the movie was not wrong for showing that part.

But by making TM 100% reliant on tech and then changing his origin into the girl really crosses the line into why even bother using that character in the first place.

2 ways they could have went with this TM to make it more interesting but they didn’t:

1. The big reveal be that even AFTER Taskmistress is sprayed with the mind control antidote and removed from the suit she was STILL capable of mimicking! But we are getting into mutant scenarios here and the MCU is not there yet.

Or

2. Show her body being tortured by the mimicking technology giving her character more depth than just muh daughter has a silly burned face that doesn’t resemble real burned faces who require face transplants.

As is she is a boring 2D character where the mimicking really meant nothing to the plot.

I also would like to add that I went into this movie fully expecting TM to be Blonsky who I had been believing that for the better part of the year which then changed to Melina but never the daughter.

Yeah I think he already had the ability but took the serum to enhance it further, either way the whole tech thing was lame. You can just give any villain stupid amounts of money and they can have any tech they want.

Oh you know S.H.I.E.L.D.'s expiremental helicarriers? Well this random Russian guy already has a flying fortress and has no issues with it and is completely undetectable.

 

[ironmcn]

Yeah I think he already had the ability but took the serum to enhance it further, either way the whole tech thing was lame. You can just give any villain stupid amounts of money and they can have any tech they want.

Oh you know S.H.I.E.L.D.'s expiremental helicarriers? Well this random Russian guy already has a flying fortress and has no issues with it and is completely undetectable.

The minute we got to the Red Room I was sucked out of the movie by this exact point. As an audience member, I'm supposed to believe that it's realistic nobody else has detected this flying fortress yet? I don't give a **** if it moves and lands or whatever, between all the tech in the MCU, I don't buy it.

I'd say the only way we get changes is to vote with our wallets, but I think MCU movies will continue to be such a hit with casual moviegoers that it won't matter. Unless the casual trend switches back to "superhero movies aren't cool anymore," we're going to have to take what they give us. Even if it's renditions of characters that completely change everything about the character, like Taskmaster. My hope for this character is that someone else picks up the suit (because it seems like the suit is what makes the character in the MCU?) and becomes the "real" Taskmaster down the line, but who knows.

 

[matticus]

Might be I'm not judging it correctly, but I laughed when the Red Room fell and exploded miles away from where everyone was at. Just seemed really convenient as it just hovered in the sky, engines cut then fell straight down. I get wind and distance, but still.

 

[ZE_501]

The Red Room didn't quite register on me when I watched it ... I mean yeah, the whole massive implausibly undetectable castle in the sky from a Roger Moore movie registered, but in hindsight, it breaks the MCU.

S.H.I.E.L.D. and maybe Wakanda should have noticed that thing.

But this is just part of the Harry Potter-ification of the MCU.

Marketers & Writers: "The amazing thing about the rich foundation and world-building we've invested decades in, is that now audiences are ready for stories we just couldn't tell before. The possibilities now are endless!

Audiences with a modicum of critical faculty left: "Y'all are just lazy now."

I'll temper my cynicism with the concession that they may still wow us, but I'll believe it if I see it. It's looking pretty lame right now.

• WandaVision: c- ... entertaining premise, didn't stick the landing
• The Falcon And The Winter Soldier: e ... total failure
• Loki: c+ until further notice ...
• Black Widow: c+ ... some entertainment value, not very re-watchable.

If there's one charge I'd level at all of the above, it's a jarring lack of consistency for characters and casual disregard for years of world-building, although if memory serves it was least apparent in WandaVision, which had other problems.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Just give me a Spider-Man PS4 Taskmaster figure Hot Toys. Not whatever pointless "character" they did with the BW movie.

It's a shame Hot Toys didn't go down the "villain" route with the VG line because Insomniacs Taskmaster is far superior (on all fronts) to the TopHat we saw in Black Widow.

 

[chrisstbh]

It's a shame Hot Toys didn't go down the "villain" route with the VG line because Insomniacs Taskmaster is far superior (on all fronts) to the TopHat we saw in Black Widow.

Insomniacs character artists are amazing, Taskmaster & Prowler both looks great.

 

[matticus]

Insomniacs character artists are amazing, Taskmaster & Prowler both looks great.

I didn't care for Electro nor Shocker's models. Shocker's mask looks like a beak for a falcon. Other than that, I loved the game. I liked Scorpion the most and would love to see that made. I get the villains don't sell as well, but I think Batman's and Spiderman's rogues are a big deal and would sell well.

 

[ZE_501]

I think Batman's and Spiderman's rogues are a big deal and would sell well.

Smaller runs or maybe con exclusives would sell out.

 

[chrisstbh]

I didn't care for Electro nor Shocker's models. Shocker's mask looks like a beak for a falcon. Other than that, I loved the game. I liked Scorpion the most and would love to see that made. I get the villains don't sell as well, but I think Batman's and Spiderman's rogues are a big deal and would sell well.

Yeah I loved Scorpion's design. I liked the way Shocker looked. Excited to see what they do with Venom & Green Goblin.

 

[matticus]

Yeah I loved Scorpion's design. I liked the way Shocker looked. Excited to see what they do with Venom & Green Goblin.

Really really need a HT Symbiote Spiderman.