The super heroes we are seeing in movies have their origins in 20th century comics. I don’t think they’re our version of the Greek myths, since we still have the Greek myths. Rather, they are a kind of dumbed-down modern mythology (intelligently and artfully written comics excepted).
I am saying something a little different. I have agreed per above posts that super hero movies are not fundamentally different from other action movies. But they are dragged a bit below the average by the source material: i.e., comics.
Comics are childish because the wish fulfillment, characterizations, and plots are on a childish level. Literally, as they were written for children and never achieved any kind of sophistication until books like the Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen came out (both 1986). OK, there was some perhaps deeper stuff in Marvel’s Secret Wars (1984). Then graphic novels and more sophisticated stuff blew up in the 1990s. But excepting Watchmen, which had original characters, even those books had to deal with some pretty silly heroes, origin stories, etc.
I think there is another way in which super heroes are childish that’s a bit more complicated. In life, most of the great things we accomplish come from collective action. But it’s boring (or at least not simple) to talk about a large police force finding and taking down a criminal. It’s exciting (and simpler) to talk about how one hero–Batman!–does so. This criticism applies to action movies in general and, for that matter, movies in general. Personally, I think truth is stranger than fiction and the story of how, say, the Russians defeated the Germans in WWII is fascinating and amazing. But it’s highly complex and requires some study to understand. The bang! pow! of super heroes is easily digestible for the kiddos.
Maybe the above helps a little. But then there are the man-children (mostly men, it seems, though female comic nerds have greatly increased in recent years) who really, I mean really, let me stress quite seriously get into comics and stuff. It’s not a crime and I love brain-dead entertainment within reason myself, but devoting a significant part of one’s mentality to it seems a bit sad.
Yes, especially in a room in which Padme is staying! It should be everything-proof: shatter-proof, bullet-proof, laser-proof, bomb-proof!
You are correct! 
True, I have fun with it too. I’ve read (but not posted about) X vs. Y battles online, etc.
More than anything, it’s the fatigue factor and the quality factor. A lot of really bad movies have come out and will come out, and I’m not into (for reasons I think are solid) a lot of the ones that people think are good. For example, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a truly terrible movie IMHO. Just so dumb and so boring. But people raved. Go figure.
Superheroes aren’t infantile; the current style of superhero movies is. There are plenty of possibilities for adult superhero stories, but Hollywood isn’t interested in making them.
For what it’s worth, Moore was perfectly willing to do Watchmen with the Charlton characters; he just got told to back off, and so swapped in – well, Rorschach for the Question: basically the same guy, right up until he tracks down that kidnapper and snaps; except, instead of working alongside the Blue Beetle, he worked alongside Nite Owl, who – is basically the Blue Beetle.
Thunderbolt here, Captain Atom there; the story would’ve played out pretty much the same under its original title: Who Killed The Peacemaker?
Good point! But I think that Watchmen would have retained its “meta” approach to the heroes either way. Clever comic (didn’t read but saw the movie and have read about the story).
Buh? Compare Deadpool to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
Granted, the former is crude in a way the latter could never have managed, but crudity isn’t infantile per se; simplistic storylines are, like avoiding World War III is as easy as chucking all existing nuclear missiles into the sun.
It’s not the crudity, it’s the sameness. Every superhero movie has the same plot: A villain appears, fights the hero, and is not defeated. The hero tries to figure out his plans – which always boil down to a frontal attack against the hero – that leads to twenty minutes of people punching each other. This was tedious back in the 60s when Marvel invented the formula and is so predictable that I’ve given up on superhero movies.
(Does that plot describe Deadpool? I haven’t seen it, but I just looked up the synopsis on Wikipedia and it looks like yup it does.)
A superhero film at this point needs to go beyond the fight scenes and cliched relationships and not show stupid heroes and ever stupider villains whose idea of a clever plot is to attack the hero on Tuesday instead of Thursday. It need to deal with real characters instead of the simple cliched conflicts of cardboard cutouts.
An adult superhero film wouldn’t bother with fight scenes; it would deal with the emotional background of being a hero. Or what it means to be one. Or how you can be a hero without punching anyone. Maybe feature a villain who actually tries to avoid the hero (which any intelligent villain would try to do), or who takes some actually work on the part of the hero to track down. It would come up with a plot other than Bad Guy is Eeeeevillllllll (Spider-Man 2 at least gave some lip service to this) and wants to rule/destroy the world!
(I had some hope that Guardians of the Galaxy would be different. Nope. Exactly the same as everything else.)
Well, if being formulaic is infantile, it applies to genres far beyond just superheroes.
In this regard, the television adaptations are your better bet. They allow character and plot development over 20+ episodes that two-hour movies can’t do simply because of the time constraints. This is not likely to improve as more heroes get crammed into ensemble films, though the X-Men franchise can vaguely manage it because they don’t need complex origin stories - the characters have powers because they were born with them - done.
Looking over a list of superhero movies since 2000 (I’d also credit the first Blade movie from 1998), I’d have to say I’d pick the top three as…
- X-Men / X-Men 2 (considered as one for the purposes of this comparison)
- Iron Man
- Thor
… and the notable element is the quality of the villain in each. Their motivations are relatively straightforward and coherent, unlike many of the other films of the period including sequels to the above.
That said, I’m okay with declaring that 90% of superhero movies are crap, because 90% of EVERYTHING is crap.
Have you tried Jessica Jones? Still may end up not being your cup of tea, but it gets much closer to that sort of feel.
ETA: The fight scenes ( and there are a few ) tend to be messy, chaotic affairs as the hero in question is not really a trained fighter - it’s just the kind of slop you’d get from someone who is super strong but never learned how to throw a punch.
Wow, you haven’t seen many superhero movies lately, have you?
Hardly worthwhile, considering the only threat against her arises from disgruntled spice miners.
Mentats, attack!
I’d definitely watch a movie about that superpower.
It’s funny, I just listened to an episode of the Cracked podcast, and it talked about “Stupid Lies Form Pop Culture Everyone Believes”, including things like how often gunned intruders break into homes, or how often bombs have a countdown clock on them. And these things from “realistic” action movies affect us, because we think it’s much more likely than it actually is that our homes will get broken into and we’ll need to protect ourselves with guns. And the debate in Congress on torture specifically mentioned Jack Bauer and 24 and how torture would be warranted if there was a bomb with a ticking clock found. I’d possibly agree, except that bombs don’t have clocks ticking down to the explosion in real life, it’s just a device to amp up the tension in movies or TV shows.
I don’t understand why devoting a significant part of one’s mentality is any more or less sad than being a big fan of football, romance novels, or any other hobby or interest. Absolutely any interest can range from someone just barely dabbling in it, to someone who is obsessed and neglects other areas of their life. I’d guess most people are in the middle or nearer the just dabbling end.
A lot of comic book movies can be read on different levels, or at least the better ones can be. Winter Soldier is dumb if you are picking apart the realism of it, like the concept of supersoldiers or the flying helicarriers. But it also had some interesting things with the rising surveillance state and fighting against that, and the disillusionment with the government.
I wouldn’t say that all superhero movies are the same, but there definitely is a formula that a lot of them stick to. An inordinate number of superhero movies include a pillar of light/vortex to the sky that has to be stopped, and/or buildings crashing down. I’m sure you could mix and match action scenes from different comic book movie trailers and not be able to immediately tell which crashing and exploding building is from which different movie. Too many of them are about the heroes fighting against the world being destroyed, so you do get kinda numb to that. That’s part of the reason that Deadpool and Captain America Civil War were refreshing; the stakes were high for the heroes but it wasn’t world ending/world changing stakes, so those movies stood out.
But I do have to say that this holds true for action movies in general, there are definitely non-comic book action movies that unnecessarily ramp up the danger to world toppling levels so that the trailers are more exciting. There’s a formula to action movies and superhero action movies are just a variation on that.
What are you accusing of being infantile? The concept in general - use of myths by any society is infantile? - or this particular execution?
Humans socialize and generate culture by their myths. There is a standard set - what’s different across cultures are which bits are emphasized, the lessons learned, how that society’s people and events are “grafted onto” the basic mythic frameworks, etc.
I don’t get what is infantile about the basic purpose of myths in a society’s culture.
I agree. Liking things is fucked up. Would you care to share some things you like so we can tell you how fucked up it is?
This reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote, about how “realistic” fiction can be more deceptive and misleading than fantasy.
[QUOTE=C.S. Lewis]
[Fantasy] is accused of giving children a false impression of the world they live in But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression. I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world to be like the fairy tales. I think that I did expect school to be like the school stories. The fantasies did not deceive me: the school stories did. All stories in which children have adventures and successes which are possible, in the sense that they do not break the laws of nature, but almost infinitely improbable, are in more danger than the fairy tales of raising false expectations.
…
I do not mean that school stories for boys and girls ought not to be written. I am only saying that they are far more liable to become ‘fantasies’ in the clinical sense than fantastic stories are. And this distinction holds for adult reading too. The dangerous fantasy is always superficially realistic. The real victim of wishful reverie does not batten on the Odyssey, The Tempest, or The Worm Ouroboros: he (or she) prefers stories about millionaires, irresistible beauties, posh hotels, palm beaches and bedroom scenes—things that really might happen, that ought to happen, that would have happened if the reader had had a fair chance.
[/QUOTE]
Superheroes are merely modern versions of older heroes and myths. Stories about people with power we don’t and can’t have, and how they use it.
Besides;
“All right,” said Susan, “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meet the rising ape.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers?”
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
Yes. Justice. Duty. Mercy. That sort of thing.
“They’re not the same at all!”
Really? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet you act, like there was some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged:
“Yes. But people have got to believe that or what’s the point?”
My point exactly.
Didn’t ang lee an adult superhero (which was a type of movie he didn’t personally care for) movie with the first hulk movie and neither hulk fans ,critics or even movie fans in general liked it much ?