Movie musings - February 2024

Here are some musings on some current topics in movie, TV and pop culture. 

Movie Budgets

Hollywood needs to reign in their budgets. Last year we had Godzilla Minus One from Toho Studios cost $15 million dollars. The Creator by Gareth Edwards for $83 million. 

Gone are the days that movies automatically make a billion dollars now. $500 million is the new billion. 

Fast X cost $340 million!! Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost £295 million, MI: Dead Reckoning, $291 million, this has got to STOP!

We need film makers and studios to go back to basics, approach franchises the way say A24 would, make a Terminator movie for $80 million. Universal has just taken on Gareth Edwards to direct and fast track the new Jurassic World movie for 2025 (Why we need ANOTHER one, I don't know) but he's the guy to do it, experience in creature features as well as getting a movie that looks like it was made for $300 million be made for $120 million (The Creator as above).

Legacy Sequels

Legacy sequels, they've been around longer than you think. One of the first was The Color of Money (1986) a sequel to The Hustler (1961). In the past 10 years or so they have enabled us to re-visit such beloved franchises as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Scream, Ghostbusters and Top Gun. 

Legacy sequels aren't going anywhere, a quick glance at this years release schedule confirms that. 2024 will bring us the likes of Beetlejuice 2, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Gladiator 2, and Twisters (Although the latter does not star any of the original cast...that I know of yet!)

Please Hollywood use this type of movie sparingly. They can be so amazing, Top Gun: Maverick (2022) and so not The Matrix Resurrections (2021). Do it for the right reasons, not just an exercise in dropping fan boy member berries. 

Comic Book Movies - the MCU

From the year 2000 to 2018, comic book movies reigned supreme. They were event movies, audience members soon learned to stay behind for post-credit scenes which became as big a feature as the movie that had just finished. What's happened? We've gone from Thor's hammer or Cap in Times Square to Harry Styles!! Anyway, I can distinctly remember the thrilling end to Avengers: Endgame (2019) "Avengers...Assemble - Captain America" it made me feel like I was a little boy at the cinema again.

Then after The Avengers: Endgame (2019) what the hell happened? I once heard it coined perfectly, "The MCU after Endgame feels like you've completed the main missions of a game and now all you've got is side quests". 

I would say the following has contributed to the MCU's fall from grace;

• Thanks to Disney execs wanting "More More More!!" Kevin Feige and his creative team have been stretched too thin. Having to create more and more content (For the big and small screen) has led to a noticeable drop in quality.
• Asking that audience members sit through so much content to get the full experience of the movie has stripped away the pleasure of just enjoying a movie on it's own merits.
• The "Infinity Saga" was pitch perfect. Introduce each main character and then sequentially lead up to the glorious finale that was Endgame. What made the "Infinity Saga" so great? Were they all amazing movies? No. But there was direction, and an end goal which the new saga has been sorely lacking. We also cared deeply about the characters and their individual arcs. Sorry but there has been no match or replacement for the charisma, charm and likeability of the OG Avengers in the new phases.
• The "Multiverse saga" has been an absolute mess. If the new saga consisted of nothing but new properties that would be one thing, but a lot of the worst entries of phases 4 and 5 (so far) have featured characters established in phases 1 to 3, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Thor, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. 
• To compound the issue such mis-fires as Eternals, (which was supposed to be one of the heavy hitters post Infinity War) massively split critics and fans alike. For the record, I did not like it. That celestial in the ocean is still sitting there! 
• Having said that there have been some good entries such as the Spider-Man films, Loki (S1 & S2), Wandavision and What If? at least they have felt like the MCU of old.

So what can they do? Well to steady the ship Feige & Co are only releasing one movie this year, Deadpool & Wolverine. Similar to Superman Legacy for DCU (see below), D&W needs to absolutely crush it and also act as a reset of sorts for the ailing franchise. I really liked the trailer but want the new movie to be as gritty and violent as the first Deadpool and fear it looks a little too clean.

On the small screen we have two series left this year, X-Men 97 (Animated) and Agatha (A frankly un-needed spin off from Wandavision). Much like Star Wars (See below) they need to continue to spread out the content and make their properties event movies and required viewing for their TV series once more. People need to get hungry for MCU content again and this will only happen when the quality of the work increases.

Comic Book Movies - the DCU & Elseworlds

The DCEU is dead, long live the DCU. How long the DCU will live depends very much on the first instalment of James Gunn/Peter Safran's re-imagined universe, Superman Legacy due for 2025. If Superman soars (pun intended!) they are off to a flying start (another pun!!). However if it tanks, or even if it has a fair to middling reception and box office, the DCU could be dead before it even has a chance to live. 

One final point, I'm not massively crazy on Gunn directing the first movie out of the gate whilst also being essentially the Feige equivalent. Imagine if Kevin Feige also directed Iron Man (2008)? That's essentially what is happening here. In a sense Gunn can't win. If Superman Legacy tanks (and lets say for argument sake the DCU carries on!) and another director takes over and his or her film is success then that undermines Gunn. If Gunn's Superman Legacy is a success, that means he will have very clearly set out his vision not only for that movie but the proceeding universe. This leads me to question how much creative freedom will subsequent directors have, will they have to toe the line with Gunn's vision or will be be able to go their own way?

As for DC Elseworlds, I have really liked the two single movie entries so far, The Joker (2019) which bagged Phoenix a Best Actor Oscar and $1 Billion at BO was a runaway success. Matt Reeve's The Batman (2022) starring Robert Patterson is easily one of my favourite cinema experiences of the last few years. This was also very well received and earned nearly $900M worldwide. In my book DC Elseworlds just needs to carry on what it's doing, in releasing one quality film after another, but just keep it to the main characters and whatever they do don't be tempted to create a universe to connect them.

Star Wars

Remember back with the MCU I said that Disney execs said they wanted more, more, more? Well the same can be applied to the franchise from a galaxy far far away. I can remember watching Star Wars on VHS when I was a lad of about five in 1981, having seen that film I soon begged my parents to hire the sequel The Empire Strikes Back. Then I have a newspaper cutting advertising the last film in the trilogy "The Return of the Jedi" due for release in 1983. I was so incredibly excited to watch the last instalment, as a result the classic trilogy has been etched into my mind forever. 

Fast forward to 1996 and I could not believe George Lucas was hard at work on a new prequel trilogy of movies, "Oh my god I thought, we are going to find out how Anakin became Vader!!" And so in 1999, sixteen years after the last cinematic entry "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" was released. Now with exception of the amazing end lightsaber fight with Darth Maul that movie was a trade negotiations dud and in my opinion was followed by two other duds (Although Revenge of the Sith has shades of greatness). 

Then, well let's just say a classic Star Wars quotes sums it up;

"For over a thousand generations, the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic... before the dark times... before the empire" - Obi-Wan Kenobi 

He could as well have been saying;

"For over 35 years, Star Wars was adored by fans young and old alike...before the dark times...before Disney"

Disney has ruined Star Wars. It has not only produced at best varied content, it has also split the fan base and made it more toxic living on Cyrkon. Okay before I have a bit a of rant I will say off the bat that I loved The Mandalorian, season 1 and 2 and Andor season 1. Ok good stuff over, the rest in my book is crap film and TV alike. 

The sequel trilogy was a total mess. The Force Awakens was arguably the best of the bunch but they killed off Han Solo (I know it at Ford's request), but not once did Han, Luke and Leia share screen time I mean what was J.J. Abrams thinking?? The Last Jedi was a bold but extremely divisive swing on the part of Ryan Johnston. The last one, The Rise of Skywalker was an absolute disaster that nearly ruined the entire franchise and frankly shit on the memory of the classic trilogy. 

The Star Wars output on the small screen has also been an extremely mixed bag. I've already touched on the high point of The Mandalorian and Andor but the other series' have by and large been misfires. The problem with the Disney+ series' is they have tried to plug the gap in holes that didn't need filling. 

Boba Fett, the ultra-cool and mysterious bounty hunter from Jedi dies a noble death at the hands (or tentacles) of the Sarlacc pit. He's dead that's it. But no, Disney have to carve a series out of how he escaped and give us a series that by half way through they had run of material for the titular character and had to call in relief pitcher Mando to pick up the slack (Arguably the best episodes of that series). Incidentally those two episodes of Boba Fett featuring Mando and Grogu were better than the entire 3rd season of The Mandalorian. 

Obi-Wan was a very frustrating series. This should have been the big one, and undeniably it did have some good scenes between Vader/Anakin and Obi Wan that tried to bridge the gap between Sith and A New Hope and it gave Hayden Christensen somewhat of a new lease of life with fans. But the whole additional redemption arc of Reeva just wasn't needed and should have been if anything a series for that character alone. (Strong actress let down by weak material).

The other live action series I saw was Ashoka. Having never seen any of the animated Star Wars series I did not have any attachment to the characters in this series. I equally didn't really have any attachment to the characters in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) but that didn't stop me loving Andor. I didn't however love this, I found it to be extremely wooden, over serious and flat and even though as I say did not know the history and lore of characters thought the reunion between Ezra and Sabine to be so under cooked it was raw!

Star Trek

Along with Star Wars I also grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and yes you can love both, and for those of you who say you can't you're an idiot, or petaQ in Klingon or Di'kut in Mandalorian. I also loved Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager but the Next Gen crew were my crew. I also have in more recent years watched the classic series which I loved. 

Favourite Star Trek movies, classic crew - The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home. 

Favourite Star Trek Next Gen movie - First Contact. 

I was nervous to hear that they were planning a news series with Picard, this feeling was confirmed with a terrible first season, even worse second. However, showrunner Terry Matalas took over for season 3 and produced arguably one of the greatest seasons of Star Trek ever, re-uniting the Next Gen crew in a superb way that gave each member of the cast time to shine as well being an awesome adventure with the beloved team.

Kudos as well to the cast and crew of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Having seen season two last year this series got Star Trek (After the frankly violent and weird Star Trek: Discovery) back to basics. Telling the story of the USS Enterprise before Kirk under the direction of Captain Christopher Pike (The amazing Anson Mount). Good old fashioned bread-and-butter planet per week moral adventures.

Finally as for the movies, I enjoyed the new Star Trek movies with Chris Pine et al, but think Star Trek has and will always will be best on the small screen.

Doctor Who

My first doctor was Matt Smith, I loved his tenure (albeit being a bit weaker at the end). On the strength of his episodes, I watched the series from Christopher Eccleston onwards. David Tennant soon became a joint favourite with Smith. Peter Capaldi made for a doctor with much more age and gravitas but was let down with weak episodes and storylines. I did like his last season with though with Bill as his companion.

As for Jodie Whittaker's time in the Tardis, I could not get past the first few episodes, nothing against Whittaker she is a very good actress (and its not because she is a woman!!), I just found the writing to be abysmal. I understand from friends who saw her adventures that her tenure in the Tardis was weakest since it's re-boot in 2005.

I loved the three 60th Anniversary special episodes with David Tennant and Catherine Tate and thought the choice of introducing bi-generation in the last episode was inspired. 

I am very excited for Ncuti Gatwa's tenure, I thought the Christmas special was excellent. He clearly has an abundance of joy and energy and given the series is now being spear headed by the great Russell. T. Davies (Of Eccleston & Tennant's reign) I hope for great things in 2025 and beyond!

One question, what will his catchphrase be?

Thanks for reading my musings, if you have got this far you deserve a star!

Please feel to comment down below!