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Captain America: CW screenwriters comment on Marvel's villain problems

AllUniverse17

AllUniverse17

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It's hard to find many faults with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but if the box office juggernaut has any weaknesses, it might be the lack of truly memorable villains (outside of Loki, of course). Red Skull, Ronan the Accuser, Malekith, Whiplash and a whole host of other ne'er-do-wells have left comic book fans wanting a little more at the movie theater. Captain America: Civil War screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus discuss that issue with JoBlo and how they hope to avoid it when tackling Thanos for Avengers: Infinity War Part 1.

"If you think about it, I get the criticism, but the early phases were all origin stories. It tends to create a similar villain. When it is no longer an origin story, I think you might have a little bit more freedom to create different villains. I’m sensitive to the problem. I get it. But it wasn’t the Robert Redford story, it was Captain America: Winter Soldier. It wasn’t the Red Skull’s journey [in The First Avenger], it was the journey of one guy going from ninety pound weakling to American hero and then going into the ice. So in a 120-minute movie it is difficult, and Thanos will possibly change that, but you want time spent. Excuse me for going on a tangent but I love the Marvel Netflix shows because you have so much more time to spend with your villains. It’s literally minutes and hours spent. We have 120-minutes and Jessica Jones had how ever many it had."


Has MCU been so good that we are at the point of nitpicking stuff or is this a valid complaint?

The only good ones i can think of are Iron Monger and Winter Soldier.

What say you BGOL???
 
The reason the criticism is valid, is because they do a lot of one-off villains. If they would go ahead and make more villains like Loki, and span multiple movies, then we could learn to understand those villains with the depth that we understand the heroes, and we would be more invested in them as well.

Disney's MCU also steps on its own toes by cheapening some of Marvel's greatest villains, turning them into side characters, movie background extras, or in the worst cases, comic relief.
 
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Thing is writing acting and story flows well enough they can get by with this Lack.


Spoiler alert


Marvel cinema really only has one villain.

Since they started this journey with Ironman and we faithfully sat in our seats thru the end credit to hear fury talk about the avengers initiative there has only been one guy (or Titan) who's been the end game.
 
The funny thing about the MCU and Marvel comics movies in gereral is to me, the licensing issues. A lot of the worldchanging earthbound villains that could really be great across the whole universe and multiple movies are owned by Sony and Fox.
 
snark9 said:
The reason the criticism is valid, is because they do a lot of one-off villains. If they would go ahead and make more villains like Loki, and span multiple movies, then we could learn to understand those villains with the depth that we understand the heroes, and we would be more invested in them as well.

Marvel also steps on its own toes by cheapening some of Marvel's greatest villains, turning them into side characters, extras, or in the worst cases, comic relief.
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The mark of making a True Villain for me as a writer is a person having depth and conviction and their motivations. It doesn't have to be anything that a reasonable person could relate to but knowing that they feel unapologetically for some, and controlled by a thirst on others shows a depth that takes time.And, if the majority of the focus is on heroes who will not lose the point is moot because they won't take the time to flesh it out.

In my opinion, a great movie would be where the heroes lose, someone actually dies and they have to retreat in the first one and then they do a sequel and the hero wins.
 
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darth frosty said:
Thing is writing acting and story flows well enough they can get by with this Lack.


Spoiler alert


Marvel cinema really only has one villain.

Since they started this journey with Ironman and we faithfully sat in our seats thru the end credit to hear fury talk about the avengers initiative there has only been one guy (or Titan) who's been the end game.
Click to expand...
We all know about Thanos is the main villain, but the thing about it is that the art of filmmaking still matters. These aren't comic books. they need to be able to tell stories that stand on their own without relying on some future villain to reconcile gaps in storytelling/character motivation/character depth.
 
godofwine said:
The mark of making a True Villain for me as a writer is a person having depth and conviction and their motivations. It doesn't have to be anything that a reasonable person could relate to but knowing that they feel unapologetically for some, and controlled by a thirst on others shows a depth that takes time.And, the majority or the focus on heroes who will not lose the point is moot because they won't take the time to flesh it out.

In my opinion, a great movie would be where the heroes lose, someone actually dies and yhey have to retreat in the first one and then they do a sequel and the hero wins.
Click to expand...
I agree 100%.... one thing that makes the orginal Star Wars trilogy so great was the fact that after the victory in A New Hope, Empire, ended on such a bummer for the heroes. The villains whooped their asses. You're left wondering how they're going to recover. Which in turn leaves you way more invested.
 
snark9 said:
We all know about Thanos is the main villain, but the thing about it is that the art of filmmaking still matters.
Click to expand...

I fully agree!

I believe they have mastered the art of story telling with minor impact villains.

Essentially marvel has used macguffins to move along story and plot lines.

Another spoiler alert


Civil War in actuality has no real villain

But it is a great movie IMO.
 
daddyfatsacks9000 said:
The funny thing about the MCU and Marvel comics movies in gereral is to me, the licensing issues. A lot of the worldchanging earthbound villains that could really be great across the whole universe and multiple movies are owned by Sony and Fox.
Click to expand...

Nah sorry bro thats no excuse. They are ruining the villains that they do have at their disposal. They cant complain about the ones that they dont have.

This isnt so much about power levels, its all about character development.
 
darth frosty said:
I fully agree!

I believe they have mastered the art of story telling with minor impact villains.

Essentially marvel has used macguffins to move along story and plot lines.

Another spoiler alert


Civil War in actuality has no real villain

But it is a great movie IMO.
Click to expand...
Just like your theory about 1 villain there's really only one MacGuffin, the Infinity Stones.
 
we've already made threads on this... in fact some of us have said dc had two of the best villains in the joker and zod...marvel tends to suck in that category..in fact winter soldier was the best bad guy they had which is funny being that winter soldier was the best movie
 
The thing about Marvel movies especially the ones with multiple heroes is that the fans love the heroes especially those small moments when they are just sitting around talking and shooting shit (like the thor's hammer scene) or arguing and bickering like in The Avengers - the fans love the screen time with these likable heroes and they dont care as much for a Big Bad as much as just seeing there heroes together - Guardian of the Galaxy is another example as was Ant Man - the villian was just the macguffin for the person to be heroic - in Batman the Joker is as important as Batman as is Lex Luthor for Superman (that is why people hate BvS so much- Luthor sucked Bryan Cranston as Luthor would have changed the dynamic as opposed to nebbish Jessie eisenberg)

Marvel's problem is not going to be the villains but - one stakes - can they keep making the stakes high enough for the heroes to be challenged(enter Thanos) and second an abundance of riches - can they crank out enough movies to handle the demand - they have already cut Inhumans from the lineup to put in Ant-man and the Wasp and this will continue to happen like on Netflix where Daredevil 2 or Jessica Jones 2 were not part of the original equation.
 
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There is a theory online that some of the villians are not actually dead.

The three villians killed by the infinity stones could possibly be brought back once Thanos get all the stones.

Red Skull, Ronan and Ultron
 

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