I've got 56 minutes before class starts, and I just finished watching "With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story". If you have Netflix, definitely give it a watch. I'm not the biggest comic book reader, since I never grew up on them, and read other things, however, with the recent (past 10 years?) rise of comic book films becoming an incredibly strong staple in American, and now international entertainment, I've started to look into what makes these films popular, and where the film's stories come from the originals. It's quite interesting to see how much goes into the details of not just the comic book film, but the comics alone, and how amazing of an art form it is.
However recently, I had a discussion with a old high school classmate about the recent Star Wars buyout from Disney, and then it led into Marvel's buyout as well. Disney is ruler of Hollywood, in my opinion. They own so much that people don't realize actually how much they own. I mean, look at the list:
ABC Broadcasting
ESPN
Buena Vista Home Distribution
ABC Family
Disney Channel (world wide)
Hyperion Books
Marvel Entertainment
The El Capitan Theater
Muppets Studio
Hollywood Records
Pixar Studios
Touchstone Pictures
and now Lucasfilm, which also includes one of, if not the biggest VFX studios, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic).
They're huge. This doesn't even cover the span of theme parks, cruise lines, food or clothing products, or buying the licensing rights to James Cameron's Avatar for a new land in Orlando's Animal Kingdom.
My friend tried to say how buying out Marvel and Lucasfilm is bad. How the stories, books and comics will be ruined. And I realized, are they really going to be? I really doubt it.
The thing is, books and comics aren't as popular anymore. I'm sad about it, because I love reading a good novel or story like any other coffee drinking hipster who dwells in the corner of Barnes and Noble. But the fact is, Disney bought out these two companies for a reason. To entertain, and create new stories and bring things otherwise shuttered, to life. I highly doubt that Ant Man would have been brought to life on the silver screen if it wasn't bought out by Disney. Not just that, but also, why would someone (meaning the general public) want to read a comic that has a photo of an explosion, with a few lines of dialogue, when they could go drop $10 and see two hours of explosions, with snarky, well written one-liners, and now a cast of actors that blows the roof off any other comic book films previously made to Iron Man?
We're living in a time where people want mindless entertainment. The late Timothy Leary had it right, and the saying goes for people today. All they want to do is Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out. Why else would trash shows such as Jersey Shore, or 16 and Pregnant be as relevant to pop culture? Or a film like Transformers 3 be as "good" (Yes, the action was fun, but for the love of Autobots is that film long in the tooth...) as others?
My final question is this: Where is the quality anymore? Why aren't popular films like the calibre of the films of old like Casablanca, or African Queen? Where is the storytelling in the popular culture films? It's in films that Marvel is cranking out. The next few years are going to be explosive, and not just literally. We very well may see a rise in these films that would rival anything ever put out. With the way Marvel has blended the worlds of their characters, and laid them out to each have their own story in individual films, then tying them all into the Avengers, and soon to be Avengers 2, this is going to be a long haul of films coming out, that only scratch the surface of the Marvel universe. And soon, the same could be said for Lucasfilm, and the galaxies of Star Wars. Who's to say Disney isn't already scheming up plots for a Boba Fett film, or do something outside of the Jedi realm? There are infinite possibilities. Now that Disney holds the keys to Marvel and Lucasfilm, the rest of Hollywood better look out, and get their fingers to the keyboard to crank out scripts to compete. Otherwise, the Mouse is going to reign big.
However recently, I had a discussion with a old high school classmate about the recent Star Wars buyout from Disney, and then it led into Marvel's buyout as well. Disney is ruler of Hollywood, in my opinion. They own so much that people don't realize actually how much they own. I mean, look at the list:
ABC Broadcasting
ESPN
Buena Vista Home Distribution
ABC Family
Disney Channel (world wide)
Hyperion Books
Marvel Entertainment
The El Capitan Theater
Muppets Studio
Hollywood Records
Pixar Studios
Touchstone Pictures
and now Lucasfilm, which also includes one of, if not the biggest VFX studios, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic).
They're huge. This doesn't even cover the span of theme parks, cruise lines, food or clothing products, or buying the licensing rights to James Cameron's Avatar for a new land in Orlando's Animal Kingdom.
My friend tried to say how buying out Marvel and Lucasfilm is bad. How the stories, books and comics will be ruined. And I realized, are they really going to be? I really doubt it.
The thing is, books and comics aren't as popular anymore. I'm sad about it, because I love reading a good novel or story like any other coffee drinking hipster who dwells in the corner of Barnes and Noble. But the fact is, Disney bought out these two companies for a reason. To entertain, and create new stories and bring things otherwise shuttered, to life. I highly doubt that Ant Man would have been brought to life on the silver screen if it wasn't bought out by Disney. Not just that, but also, why would someone (meaning the general public) want to read a comic that has a photo of an explosion, with a few lines of dialogue, when they could go drop $10 and see two hours of explosions, with snarky, well written one-liners, and now a cast of actors that blows the roof off any other comic book films previously made to Iron Man?
We're living in a time where people want mindless entertainment. The late Timothy Leary had it right, and the saying goes for people today. All they want to do is Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out. Why else would trash shows such as Jersey Shore, or 16 and Pregnant be as relevant to pop culture? Or a film like Transformers 3 be as "good" (Yes, the action was fun, but for the love of Autobots is that film long in the tooth...) as others?
My final question is this: Where is the quality anymore? Why aren't popular films like the calibre of the films of old like Casablanca, or African Queen? Where is the storytelling in the popular culture films? It's in films that Marvel is cranking out. The next few years are going to be explosive, and not just literally. We very well may see a rise in these films that would rival anything ever put out. With the way Marvel has blended the worlds of their characters, and laid them out to each have their own story in individual films, then tying them all into the Avengers, and soon to be Avengers 2, this is going to be a long haul of films coming out, that only scratch the surface of the Marvel universe. And soon, the same could be said for Lucasfilm, and the galaxies of Star Wars. Who's to say Disney isn't already scheming up plots for a Boba Fett film, or do something outside of the Jedi realm? There are infinite possibilities. Now that Disney holds the keys to Marvel and Lucasfilm, the rest of Hollywood better look out, and get their fingers to the keyboard to crank out scripts to compete. Otherwise, the Mouse is going to reign big.
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