Marvel movies are incredibly stupid

Cafe Society
1

When I say that they’re incredibly stupid, I’m not referring to unscientific things such a shield made of “vibranium” that deflects machine gun fire or genetic mutations that let characters walk through walls and change shape. These movies are a mixture of science fiction and fantasy, and they’re not expected to adhere rigidly to scientific fact.

I’m also not referring to the fact that each movie has an interchangeable villain seeking to conquer/destroy the earth/universe, solely because the plot requires some villain for the hero(s) to fight. That’s par for the course in big action movies.

I’m referring to the ridiculous and blatantly obvious flaws in login and coherence. Every Marvel movie has tons of plot holes that a 9-year-old can spot. I know this because I recently watched The Avengers with my neighbor’s 9-year-old son and he happily pointed out the problems as they went past:

[ul]
[li]It’s never explained why the Avengers are needed to fight invading aliens in New York City. They’re a group of six, armed mainly with big muscles and shields, bow and arrow, etc… Obviously some army guys with machine guns, rocket launchers, and so forth would have done the job a lot better.[/li][li]Thor stands on top of the Chrysler building and zaps a few enemy spaceships with his hammer. He should stay on the Chrysler Building and continue doing so. Returning to street level and whacking bad guys one by one is a waste of his potential.[/li][li]At the end of the fight, they fire a nuclear missile and Iron Man grabs it, carries it through the portal in the sky, and blows up the bad guys. They should have done this at the start of the fight, to prevent the resulting death and destruction on the streets of New York.[/li][li]Loki can teleport. He’s defeated when the Hulk grabs him and starts smashing him around. He should have teleported out of the Hulk’s grasp.[/li][/ul]

An isolated case? No. Consider the finale of X-Men 3. There’s a building on an island in the San Francisco Bay. Magneto wants to kill a certain individual in this building. So what does he do? He takes his team of evil mutants and walks onto the Golden Gate Bridge. He tears out a section of the bridge and flies it across the bay to the island, putting it near but not on top of the building. Then his evil mutants try to enter the building, but military forces combined with the X-Men make a successful defense of the building.

Here’s what Magneto should have done. He should have taken a big chunk of metal (from the bridge or anywhere else) and dropped it directly on top of the building, crushing everyone inside. This would have killed the victim immediately, with no chance for anyone to defend against it.

Or how about the trailer for Infinity War. Wakanda is the most technologically advanced nation in the history of the world. Apparently there’s a horde of monsters in a forest that the Wakandans need to fight against. So what are they going to do?

(a) Send airplanes to bomb the monsters.
(b) Launch missiles at the monsters.
© Bombard the monsters with artillery from a safe distance.
(d) Run towards the monsters and have a big fist fight.

What’s really strange to me is that nobody ever points out the stupidity of all this.

2

I wrote off superhero movies long ago because I end up screaming at the idiocy on the screen the whole time.

3

I love superhero movies, but the final act a lot of them have where the heroes fight a jillion interchangeable CGI bad guys is definitely the weakest part. Of course there’s going to be a big fight scene at the end, but I’d much rather see them fight one bad guy (or a few bad guys) with interesting and distinctive super powers of their own.

But as for “Why don’t they just send in the military?” I consider that a convention of the genre. In superhero movies – and action movies in general – only the heroes can save the day. The alternative – the boring army of interchangeable aliens/robots/whatever is defeated by a boring army of interchangeable CGI humans – would just take the biggest weakness of the movie and double it.

4

heh substitute superhero for horror movies in my case …

5

heh substitute superhero for horror movies in my case …

6

This is true of all action movies. The ones that are logical are singled out and remarked upon because of this unique approach. The rest just twist the plot into whatever makes the audience cheer the loudest.

7

Now you know how I feel when I read the Bible.

8

Their mission was to capture Loki and retrieve the Cosmic Cube. Nobody knew an alien invasion was in the offing, but once it started, they were Johnny-on-the-spot, and did the best they could. I don’t know for sure the normal military complement of mid-Town Manhattan, but I think it’s probably quite small.

A fair point. Perhaps he didn’t have an infinite supply of lighting?

The World Security Council actually gave the order to launch the missile quite early in the fight, which, given the intel they had, wasn’t an unreasonable decision. Of course, they were planning on destroying Manhattan, which wouldn’t have reduced the death and destruction in New York much (though it might have limited it to there). With the best will in the world they may simply not have been able to programme the warhead for an invisible target on the other side of an interdimensional gateway.

This would also explain why there was no military presence (apart from the time it would take them to get there): you don’t send your troops into ground zero of a thermonuclear explosion.

Loki can’t teleport. Loki creates illusions. You think you’re talking to him over there, but he’s really behind you with a knife. If someone physically has hold of him, that’s the real Loki, and he’s not going anywhere.

Really, any fiction relies on a willing suspension of disbelief to succeed: all the more so for genre fiction. If you view a film (any film, pretty much) with the attitude of “this is stupid, let’s see how many faults I can find”, then, yeah, you’re going to find some faults.

Or the problem may be that you’re relying on a nine-year-old to explain an action adventure movie to you. :wink:

9

Part of enjoying a genre is accepting its limitations. Given the length of your OP, it seems you struggle doing that with superhero movies. Perhaps this genre is not for you. Just sayin’.

10

My issue with Superhero movies are that their all the same. Even Wonder Woman, the best of the recent ones succumbed to cookie-cutter-ism in the end. And fight scenes bore the hell out of me.

For once I’d like to see a subtle villain who was doing something clever and had to be outwitted.

11

I wouldn’t call them stupid but it does feel like there have been diminishing returns lately. It’s not from lack of trying. Doctor Strange stretched into fantasy and Thor 3 was outright comedy but still felt like I saw them already when I watched them. I’m not sure if Black Panther will break the spell, although I am looking forward to it, but I expect The Avengers to. It’s what the last decade of Movies have been leading up to.

12

There are many, many superhero stories available that push against those limitations. I think it’s more that a certain type of superhero narrative is currently the type with the most appeal. Not appreciating a certain type of storytelling doesn’t mean the whole genre isn’t for someone.

13

Totally agree. But a certain type of willing suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy certain genres. Gravity in sci-fi. If the Avengers facing the alien army is grounds for throwing up one’s hands, then it seems like a bit of a nonstarter.

14

I have never watched any of the “Saw” series. I can’t believe it would be in any way entertaining. I tend to look away during extended gory parts, and I have done so during, Tale of Tales and The Autopsy of Jane Doe, which I otherwise enjoyed.

I like these Marvel films for the most part because of the smart aleck remarks by various protagonists and villains and somewhat ambiguous characters. In fact I kinda like how I can poke holes in their logic, it makes me feel happy when I can say, “I would totally have dealt with Loki differently.” And even then, I can enjoy being surprised by their behavior –

“Loki, he’s stalling, he means to bury us all here.”

“Yeah, that’s what we do. Bury our gods in their pyramids. Seems like a good idea to me.” Is that Nick Fury talking, or it it something Jules would have said?

15

Not a movie, but have you watched Jessica Jones? The villain here is no-kidding intelligent, and although there are some fistfights, the main battle between the protagonist and villain is a battle of wits. It’s wonderful.

16

Superhero movies are all so overblown…many lives, if not the fate of the universe, are always at stake. I remember when comic book heroes still dealt with thieves and counterfeiters and smugglers and such. Then, too, there were the goofy villains whose main goal was just to publicly humiliate the hero of the story. When every story is about literally saving the world, the concept loses its punch.

17

This part of the trailer immediately killed any interest I had in going to this movie. I suspected it would be a bloated mess anyway, but that dumb superhero shot just sealed the deal.

18

The movies sell well regardless, so they keep getting made.

19

(1) There isn’t an army battalion just hanging around Manhattan (there’s Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn which is a National Guard/Army Reserve base but that’s the closest you get). Even ignoring the time it might take for a chain of command to decide to send the military, it’ll take considerably more time for the military to mobilize and get into a city (which is also probably currently full of people trying to exit the island)
(2) I don’t remember this well enough to comment on
(3) The Avengers didn’t fire the missile and Tony primarily grabbed it to keep it from nuking the city. He didn’t actually know that there was a mothership there to be hit, he was sacrificing himself to keep New York from getting blown up.
(4) When you’re getting slammed over and over by the Hulk, you don’t have the presence of mind to add two and two, much less play magic tricks.

That said, yes superhero movies are silly. All of them. Marvel’s cinematic success is partially because of how they embrace this rather than trying to be super-serious about it.

20

Counterpoint: I enjoy them. Balls in your court.