FTT Off-Topic: Go Cape Yourself

I Am HateMan

As always with FTT O-T, not sports and yada yada yada.

In the middle of my Twitter feed today, there was a link to the trailer for the new Superman movie, and as it referenced Amy Adams and I likes me some Amy Adams and was supposed to be utterly awesome awesome awesome, I gave it a spin. Against my better judgment. And immediately regretted it.

Gosh, it's dark! And moody! And realistic! And gritty, and edgy, and about as surprising and inventive as a dog licking himself. ONLY EVERYONE THINKS IT'S THE ABSOLUTE TEATS.

THE STUPID, IT BURNS...

You see, some fifteen years or so ago, I spent money, of my own free will, to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger rattle off ice puns and Uma Thurman prove that even one of the world's most beautiful women in skin tight clothing can be made unattractive through the wanton application of stupidity. And in that moment, some part of me snapped, and I really just didn't want to watch any more damn superhero movies. Ever again.

Of course, what has happened since then is that *everything* has become a freaking superhero movie, even while they've become many things that the crapfest that destroyed me was not. Marvel has taken over the world and corrupted one of my favorite writers, Joss Whedon. Christopher Nolan has made all of the money in the world with his Batman movies, and no, I haven't seen a one of them. And perhaps the most maddening thing of all -- they rarely seem in any way interested in going past the first damn story in the canon. And I find myself, at age 43, wondering just one thing.

What does it take for all of you people who love these things, and can't wait to see them, and geek out to the point of unironic fappery, to grow the hell up and realize that what you are marking out for is, not to put too fine a point on it, offal?

Here's what happens in every superhero movie. A story that everyone in the audience is familiar with, and can summarize in about thirty seconds with more clarity than the lives of their relatives, is told with an over-reliance on special effects. Casting decisions are debated to the point of distraction, because the person in the suit is supposed to matter. The movie makes a ferocious amount of money, to the point of breaking even, then goes overseas where it does not need to be translated to draw more money. (Because, well, effects! Boom! Pwetty!) A sequel is then made where secondary characters from the canon are rolled out, until the interest dies out. Then, five to ten years after that, THEY MAKE THE ORIGINAL MOVIE AGAIN. Only with different effects, with different new young hot people in the suits, because that matters very, very much. GAHHH.

There's a reason why the best entertainment now isn't appearing on movie screens; it's on television, where you get to actually tell new stories to smaller audiences, and the special effects don't freaking matter very much. And I understand that all of this just sounds, and is, the grumblings of a man who's only demographic interest from the movie-makers is the fact that I can drive people who are into this nonsense, BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN AND DO NOT KNOW ANY BETTER, to the theater.

Where, being children, they can't actually watch these movies (or, at least, should not), because while they are stories told to children, they are made for adults. Adults who do not seem to be interested in watching anything but the same damn story they've already seen.

So, rather than just tell me I'm too old, answer me this...

How old do you have to be to stop giving a damn about superheroes, or move on with your tastes and intellect to something of actual lasting historical value?

Because maybe, just maybe, when you do...

Someone might be able to make, you know, a NEW kind of goddamn movie. FOR GROWN UPS. Or even for children, but just doesn't remind me that movies are nothing more than corporate committee meetings, and that when Nerds Win, Everyone, Including Nerds, Lose...