The House of Gucci director, who has spoken negatively about comic-book based films before as well, was asked by Deadline about his main gripe with the superhero genre.
Which means the gripe with capeshit is more than film appreciation. It’s more to do with you railing against consumerism or corporate products than talking about what makes a good movie.
No, my gripe is with rehashed characters and end of the world plotlines vs a relatively ambitious film that at least tries to tell a new story.
Capeshit is capeshit because it’s the same shit over and over and over again.
And Prometheus was a very decent film with great cinematography. Ok, maybe some characters were stupid, maybe it relied too much on suspension of disbelief but Scott at least gave it a shot. It’s all corporatized shlock but we live in a material reality in which we’re compelled to participate in and Prometheus at least stimulates the imagination. I enjoyed the the first few capeshit movies but there’s been literally 100s of them with literally the same characters and storylines. That’s indefensible.
But Prometheus didn't try to tell a new story. It was the same plot as every other alien movie. People discover aliens and then it hunts them 1 by 1 until there's a final showdown. It threw in the stuff about Engineers to give a backstory for a prop from Alien. It's the same instinct to prequalize that we seen throughout capeshit and the industry as a whole. Because Hollywood is designed to churn out the same shit over and over again. Capeshit is not a unique blight causing this. Even Ridley and/or the studio put out promotional material/easter eggs trying to connect Blade Runner to Prometheus (and therefore Alien. There is your extended universe idea. You can see pieces of the MCU, both running concurrently with it and preceding it. Disney just happened to consolidate all those corporate instincts into one franchise and commit to it.
I think Ridley's sentiment is just a coping mechanism. Directors used to be part of the talent pool. You saw a Spielberg movie because he was a brand and you could rely on that brand to produce good content (if he was your thing). Disney figured out that directors don't matter as much. They could pick these indie and inexperienced directors but put them with a good producer and make more money. Feige is the talent of the MCU, not the directors. That's going to become the norm for these kinds of movies. Since Ridley made his brand on these kinds of movies, it makes sense that he doesn't like it. It's just that his opinion rings hollow because it's just sour grapes.
interesting take. but i think that most marvel movies aren't told masterfully either. there's a certain cinematic formula they follow for most of them that goes beyond just writing - it's the lighting, colour palette, etc. they're technically competent movies with mostly great special effects, but i don't think you can call them 'craftsmanship' if they don't do anything very cool visually. there's more to even just the visual aspects of a movie (not to mention how they affect one's perception of the story) than their just looking good.
also, we thankfully don't personally remember every story ever told, and until our memory somehow becomes that good, there's loads of ways to tell previously told stories that make us think they're awesome.
No, my gripe is with rehashed characters and end of the world plotlines vs a relatively ambitious film that at least tries to tell a new story.
Capeshit is capeshit because it’s the same shit over and over and over again.
And Prometheus was a very decent film with great cinematography. Ok, maybe some characters were stupid, maybe it relied too much on suspension of disbelief but Scott at least gave it a shot. It’s all corporatized shlock but we live in a material reality in which we’re compelled to participate in and Prometheus at least stimulates the imagination. I enjoyed the the first few capeshit movies but there’s been literally 100s of them with literally the same characters and storylines. That’s indefensible.
But Prometheus didn't try to tell a new story. It was the same plot as every other alien movie. People discover aliens and then it hunts them 1 by 1 until there's a final showdown. It threw in the stuff about Engineers to give a backstory for a prop from Alien. It's the same instinct to prequalize that we seen throughout capeshit and the industry as a whole. Because Hollywood is designed to churn out the same shit over and over again. Capeshit is not a unique blight causing this. Even Ridley and/or the studio put out promotional material/easter eggs trying to connect Blade Runner to Prometheus (and therefore Alien. There is your extended universe idea. You can see pieces of the MCU, both running concurrently with it and preceding it. Disney just happened to consolidate all those corporate instincts into one franchise and commit to it.
I think Ridley's sentiment is just a coping mechanism. Directors used to be part of the talent pool. You saw a Spielberg movie because he was a brand and you could rely on that brand to produce good content (if he was your thing). Disney figured out that directors don't matter as much. They could pick these indie and inexperienced directors but put them with a good producer and make more money. Feige is the talent of the MCU, not the directors. That's going to become the norm for these kinds of movies. Since Ridley made his brand on these kinds of movies, it makes sense that he doesn't like it. It's just that his opinion rings hollow because it's just sour grapes.
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interesting take. but i think that most marvel movies aren't told masterfully either. there's a certain cinematic formula they follow for most of them that goes beyond just writing - it's the lighting, colour palette, etc. they're technically competent movies with mostly great special effects, but i don't think you can call them 'craftsmanship' if they don't do anything very cool visually. there's more to even just the visual aspects of a movie (not to mention how they affect one's perception of the story) than their just looking good.
also, we thankfully don't personally remember every story ever told, and until our memory somehow becomes that good, there's loads of ways to tell previously told stories that make us think they're awesome.