Marvel films fulfill their promise, and then some
For the past few years, I’ve been working on a musical with my sister and her husband. It’s been often rewarding, as I’ve gotten to watch the show come alive through the collaborative process, which has involved active scene and songwriting as well as multiple readings in front of audiences with Broadway actors.
But it’s been frustrating as well, particularly during tense phone calls about the storyline and how best to develop the characters.
As the book writer, my job is not just to write the dialogue between songs, but to guide and shape the story and create consistent and relatable characters. I’m there to protect the story, keep it from straying, and remaining true to its purpose.
But that also means that the work I do bears the brunt of the criticism, which often requires more humility than I’m often prepared for.
As I head into yet another round of rewrites, I remember that despite our success, it is still a difficult and painful process with no end in sight. However, after watching Avengers: Endgame over the weekend, it became clear that I really need to stop complaining about it and just write the damn thing. Avengers: Endgame is a strong a conclusion as there could be to a story this complex.
Over the past eleven years, Marvel Studios has done something unfathomable. With twenty different movies, seventeen directors, and around twenty-eight different writers (I lost count), the MCU has become more than a phenomenon. Regardless of what you might think about superhero movies, what this studio has achieved cannot be described by all the superlative adjectives in Marvel Comics.
Using hundreds of characters, dozens of storylines, and thousands of personalities, Marvel Studios has delivered an overarching epic tale that rivals any in history. It’s hard to even talk about the film, spoilers aside, because the whole of the project is so unbelievable. Other studios have tried and failed, backing away from the Marvel model because there’s something they lack, although it’s hard to define.
Much of the criticism levelled at the Marvel films is directed at the relative blandness of the villains. The critics aren’t wrong—many of the villains are one note, each dying in some Hans Gruber fashion at the end of their respective film, never to be heard from again. The best ones, like Loki, have become characters of their own, but overall they are disposable.
But if you take a step back and look at the series as a whole, you can see the shape. They’re disposable because the real villain was always somewhere else. It took six films to even introduce Thanos, the villain to end all villains. The others were just stepping stones. References in a greater story that serve to develop the character of its heroes.
The greater story is the point, just like all the best comic book tales. There are always individual fights, weekly monsters, episodic storytelling. But the story continues, so long as true believers keep buying the books. That might be the secret after all.
The MCU is comic books come to life. They’re films, of course, but that aesthetic is secondary to a very familiar type of storytelling. The movies rely heavily on the stories that inspire them and they mimic the beats found in the medium.
Which leads, I suppose, to the secondary criticism of the films. Many film critics have referenced the relative flatness of the filmmaking itself—the normalized shots and action sequences, the bright, generic lighting, and sometimes simplistic direction.
I’m not always found this to be true, myself, but it is true there’s a general easy look of a Marvel film—although that’s changed some in recent years. It might be valid. I can readily admit that some of the DC films (Marvel’s only real competition) have had some incredible filmmaking not always found in the MCU. But the story is always disjointed.
Marvel Films are coherent in a way that they shouldn’t be, given the undertaking. Something just works. And for some reason, it works every time.
So is Avengers: Endgame any good? If you’re a fan of these films, you already know the answer. Should it be someone’s first Marvel film? I can’t think of a good reason why not. If you’re confused, you can always go back and find an answer.
These films are an incredible example of what can be done creatively by working together and setting ego aside. It’s worth it to follow a vision through to a conclusion.
Someone else was inspired. Someone saw the possibilities. Someone else started writing. Someone encouraged them. Good things happened.
Movies are magic.
No one can tell me different.