Ireland – Part 4 – SDCC Edition

So, the drive from Westport to Ballina was quite nice. A bit cloudy but dry. The Irish landscape is really interesting, reminds me a bit of our alps, minus the mountains. It‘s green, with lots of hills and many rocks. So far I haven‘t seen that many crop farms, I‘ve seen sheep and peat but the farms are probably in the other part of the island. 

Lough Conn

I stayed in the town of Ballina for one night, nice little Hotel/B&B, later I‘m moving to my other Hotel in town, Belleek Castle. Yes, I‘m staying in a castle. I might post pictures later and detail my impressions. 

But let‘s focus on something else. SDCC. Damn do I miss that place. Yesterday Marvel had their Hall H thing and boy did they deliver. Part of me worries about the omnipresence of Disney/Marvel in our media landscape but there‘s another part of me that just goes wild and excited upon hearing about their new slate. I like that they are trying to diversify and at this point they can probably turn everything into gold but you have to admire their (probably Kevin Feige‘s) balls. „Doctor Strange – Multiverse of Madness“, what the? „Shang-Chi“ with an asian Mandarin and an asian Lead? We knew about the Disney+ shows so I‘ll leave it at that but „Blade“. I loved Blade, at least 1 and 2 but I hope they can deliver on that but I think at the end of the day, I‘m most excited about „Thor: Love & Thunder“. Why? There are a few things to consider there but I‘m just going to be honest, there‘s a real chance that Natalie Portman as Thor could be the most badass thing ever. She was my first celebrity crush and if her as Thor is only half as good as I think it will be, sorry JLaw, a guy never forgets his first love. 

The thing that bugs me the most though is that whole Disney+ thing. I get it, it‘s capitalism. They want me to subscribe which I probably will, I can afford it and everything, but in the long run I‘m not sure if hiding your essential MCU TV, which these shows seem to be, behind a paywall. It reminds me of football, the Champions League for example. Back in the day, those games were special, there weren‘t that many and they got shown of free-tv. If you were a boy (or girl) into football you could watch that, wether your parents were into it or not. Today there‘s too much football, but most of in on pay-tv. So if your dad doesn‘t pay for sky, you can‘t watch the games and I think that has hurt football fandom among children a bit. I might be wrong but I just hope that a similar thing doesn‘t happen to the movies I love. 

(Im)Possible Spoilers: Avengers 4

I promised to post and write more and I intend to keep this promise. There’s been nothing new on the “Skyscraper” front so I have to come up with something else.

I’m eager to get more writing done over the summer and that includes blogging so I decided to come up with some new Featured Segments. Inspired by a discussion I had with two friends recently., I’m starting a new feature called (Im)Possible Spoilers.

The idea is to look at recent movies, usually part of a franchise, and imagine how the writers are gong to continue the story or resolve some leftover plot-points. But I don’t just want to speculate, it’s going to be more like “what would I write”. I’m obviously not trying to spoil things and I’m not going to research these posts, just my imagination and my writing muscles. Don’t expect a full outline and a complete story either. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s fun, I see it more as an exercise for me. I would love to write big tentpole franchise blockbusters but since I’m probably never gonna get the chance to do that I’ll have to find ways to scratch that itch. So without further ado, two ideas about Avengers 4.

–BEWARE OF (IM)POSSIBLE SPOILERS–

I assume you’ve seen Avengers: Infinity War. Good movie, cool and devastating ending, so where do Markus & McFeely go from here? I have no information about their plans but I have some ideas on how they are going to save the world.

  1. They are not going to save the world.
    Here’s the thing, many people liked the fact that Infinity War ended with a bang snap. We’ve seen glimpses of the repercussions and they can’t just reverse that in 3 days. The new status quo needs to establish itself. We need to see what bad (and good) Thanos’ actions had. So how are they going to show that. The (Im)Possible answer: Time Jump. Let’s skip 5 years ahead. Let the world live and change. Let people live, love get married (Tony and Pepper, I’m looking at you) and maybe even have kids. We all now that some of the people who died have to come back but we still need stakes so how about a brave new world that only exists because of Thanos’ actions and if these actions are reversed, so is this new world and everyone in it. I’d be OK with stakes like that. But how do we defeat Thanos?
  1. They don’t defeat Thanos.
    It’s not Thanos that needs to be defeated, it’s the Gauntlet, the Infinity Stones.
    But how can you do that. Well, in the final Gamora scene it’s implied that she or at least part of her is trapped in the Soul Stone. I’m not saying that everyone who vanished is trapped inside the stones, that would be stupid but Gamora has a deep connection with Thanos, technically he has one with her, that might be of importance, so how do we get her back? We send someone in. Enter Ant-Man (or the Wasp). Remember the Quantum Realm? Maybe he goes alone, maybe he takes some Avengers with him, or gives them the tech to go themselves but if I were writing this, I’d take the fight into the stones.

Obviously there are details associated with these ideas and we all now that Captain Marvel will play a part as well but this is not about spoiling Avengers 4, this is just a thought experiment and this post a time-capsule to prove that I was right or totally wrong.

Captain America – Civil War

We interrupt our regular program for some quick thoughts on Captain America – Civil War.

This is not a review and spoiler free!!!

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Team Cap all the way!

I’m not sure how well you know me, but I’m a bit of a Marvel geek. I’m into comics and I have a decent collection, not total social suicide big, but big enough. I know my basic storylines and I can tell you a few things about most characters. I read DC as well (and other publishers of course) but if asked, I’m a Marvel guy.

I love the MCU, there are some misses but the hits make more than up for that. I do see problems and issues in some of the Marvel movies but overall I find those movies to be well-crafted and entertaining and to be honest, that’s what I’m looking for in a movie. Good craftsmanship and entertainment.

Unlike BvS, Marvel’s latest flick, the 3rd Captain America Movie, titled Civil War is being received well by fans and most critics alike, but there is this undercurrent, this “but” that keeps coming up and it is starting to bug me a bit. I’m not going to link to these articles1 but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about: “Is the Marvel Formula going to work for ever?”.

I’m not saying that Captain America – Civil War is a perfect movie, maybe Marvel has a bit of a third act problem, I don’t know, I’m not a critic, I’m just a guy who likes movies and thinks he knows a few things about how they are made and what kind of deliberations go into storytelling. I’m not sure that I’ve could come up with a better third act than Markus and McFeely, probably not (it’s fair to say that this is also true for act 1 and 2) but for me the important thing is that act 3 doesn’t suck, and guess what…IT DOESN’T!

It’s a perfectly fine story that works and you can feel that the writers, directors and everyone involved cared enough about the audience to tell a story that makes sense and doesn’t insult people intelligence. Some people invoke the “Marvel Formula” but I don’t think that the issue is any formula. Look at other tentpole blockbusters, that’s just the way how those stories are told today. it was a bit different in the 80s in it will be different in 10 years, that’s just how it has always been.

What I love about Marvel is easily exemplified in the Airport scene, no it’s not the spectacle, that’s fun too though, it’s the fact I can can tell why each character is on the side he’s on, I know why they are fighting their friends and so do they. In fact, the one (or two) character whose alliance is not totally understandable due to their history (or lack thereof) they movie takes it’s time to explain this fact.

I could go on and start comparing BvS to Civil War but I’m not going to do that. This is a screenwriting blog and not a movie review blog so I try to draw the screenwriting conclusion. In Civil War that conclusion ist definitely that you have to make sure that your audience cares about your characters and that you don’t betray that by compromising the integrity of your characters for a plot point.

So that’s it. Go see the movie now, it’s awesome.

Btw, the score is quite good too, guess what I’m currently listening to.

  1. I’m too lazy and I don’t want to generate clicks for them.