Will 9 subvert expectations?

not Thor: Ragnarok?
i confess i felt pretty burned out on the whole genre until i saw it.

as for ix, i don't know if i care whether it subverts anything at this point.
i feel like Johnson gave the story a good goosing (for good or for bad) and i'm ready to see what's next.

 

As good, or subversive?

It wasn't all that subversive- the humor I pretty much expected, and the story was mostly predictable (aside from one or two big twists).

As a good movie, it's definitely still up there for me, but that's probably in part because:

1) It's the first Thor movie to really utilize the strength of the character's lore
2) Taika is an incredible talented director, and this movie also played off his own strengths

Add in the Hulk, and it had so much going for it, no wonder it was so great! I still think Civil War was slightly better, but obviously that's just personal preference.

 

i guess i was thinking subversive in that the humor was so off the wall and the characters all did what we expected them to until they didn't ~ and then they did again, but in a new way. destroying Asgard was an interesting choice/resolution: that instead of preventing Ragnarok, they should bring it about.
was it a huge risk? did it upend the genre? not really, but it did give it a fresh injection in terms of the characters and their objectives.

 

It's also a hugely gay movie without having to explicitly say it.
Obvious hints of Valkyrie at the very least being bisexual. Same with Grandmaster and Loki.
Taika has said Valkyrie is bi for sure I think.

That's subversive as hell. Plus all the anus jokes.

 

I think Ragnarok benefitted from a couple of things. Thor's character has definitely evolved over time from the hotheaded young prince in the first movie to a much more likable and sometimes comedic character. What little humor there was in the first film was more with his "fish out of water" story- in Asgard, he was about as straightlaced as they come, until he evolved over time.

Second, Marvel had already had a ton of success with nostalgia-driven sci-fi comic book movies with the Guardians films. And as original as Ragnarok is, I think it's clear that James Gunn's films had their influence on it still.

So I'd agree that it was subversive in those ways, and I'd also agree that it wasn't a huge risk.

As far as destroying Asgard went- I think that's also the natural evolution of the series. As long as Asgard exists, Earth is slightly less important. With it gone, Thanos can now focus more on Earth without fearing the retribution of a more powerful realm.

 

so many many anus jokes. i don't get the gay read on Loki though.
i mean other than all that weird shipping in the fandom. XD

yeah, i can see how it's all part of the natural progression and how the plot points are critical to the coming Infinity War. you have to give Marvel credit; they've built something incredibly interrelated without making a mess of it. and you can still watch the film individually without wondering what the flock is going on.

i guess i still see Thor: Ragnarok as a standout because it takes some of the goofiness of GotG and Antman, say, and rockets it to its logical (illogical?) conclusion: a world in which everything is absurd, upside-down, fluid. it has its own internal logic which we accept, but it's really a bunch of total nonsense.

just to bring this around back to Star Wars: take Loki for example ~ he's as bad a villain or worse than Ren Ben and makes no bones about his ambitions or the backstabbing pettyness that he'll stoop to in order to accomplish those goals. we love him anyway, and we accept that Thor loves him, and we actively root for the brothers to get along. Ren Ben is a conflicted victim of an evil galactic predator who has committed some heinous crimes in pursuit of what he believes is a nobler objective, but the fandom is utterly divided on what to do with him.

that comes down to tone almost exclusively. Loki is funny. therefore we like him. and we like his (rather predictable) backstabbing and flip-flopping. his ambiguous allegiance really is, at core, a completely subversive trope in and of itself.

 

I think it also comes down to his skillset, too.

Loki is a compelling villain, but when it finally comes to fisticuffs he's absolute garbage.

Point being, he's a non-threatening villain, at least physically. He's extravagant and full of himself, but we all know that by the end there's gonna be two hits- Thor hitting Loki, and Loki hitting the floor. Basically, not unlike the Joker in that aspect.

And I think as people, we like to see villains enjoy being villains, but we also like to see them get their final comeuppance (another subversion in Civil War, in that Zemo was a non-threatening physical villain, but still succeeded in his goals).


In Star Wars, there's been talk of how Rey shouldn't be able to defeat Kylo Ren, etc.... it's been done to death, we all know the narrative by now. But I think at the very least, he's clearly more than a match for her. With Kylo Ren, you have a very established physical threat, and that upps the tension while perhaps dialing down the charisma.

 

I think it's kind of implied between he and Grandmaster.


This is how you sit when you know you did things to get out of fighting but still trying to seem okay with that guy lol

 

the Zemo comparison is excellent. in the end Zemo is exactly what we don't expect.
he's just an angry man whose life was destroyed by the muckery of "superheroes".

i do think Loki is more of a threat (not physically; he gets beat up every time, as you say), but he still manages to inflict serious damage with his machinations. and i suspect he will again (they didn't show us that tesseract for nothing).

i honestly don't get the whole Rey beats Ren thing. physically she's no match for him and he's quite the spectacle in motion. one of the things i love most about the throne room scene is how slapdash Rey's fight is compared to Ren; who is methodically thinking through his moves and executing them, whereas she's just flailing. even gravely wounded, he would have beat her if he hadn't already defeated himself mentally/emotionally.

i believe the point with Rey and Ren (and perhaps this is the greatest subversion of all, though it shouldn't be), is that they are complementary, not equal.

BWHAHAHahahaha ~ you've ruined this movie forever for me now. totally kidding.
i never got this vibe from it at all, but i can see what you mean. XD

 

Loki is definitely a joke. But Valkyrie and Grandmaster are legit.
The button in the Grandmaster's ship making fireworks...oh good god

 

yeah i totally agree about Grandmaster and Valkyrie.
in the flashback when the valkyries are defeated by Hela, you know that's her lover she's weeping for.

 

Yup. And a scene of her with a lover was cut because it was too on the nose, according to Taika

 

that is so completely on the nose... or on the bum if you go the literal route.

love TLJ, hate it or somewhere in the middle... i think most would agree with you. he definitely gave the story a poke.

 

You know, I still don't dislike TLJ, but I'd say that my opinion on it has mellowed (as has apparently a lot of peoples' on both sides of the aisle).

One thing I've noticed in film a lot, especially in long series or connected universes, is what I like to think of as the "Iron Man 2 Burden". That being, a film having to do a lot of heavy lifting for the good of the series, much like how Iron Man 2 really opened up the MCU quite a bit but at the cost of the quality of its own film.

You can see this in other stuff, like Batman v Superman, last year's King Kong and Mummy movies... basically whenever a film might overstep its bounds by trying to do good for the franchise as a whole but ultimately perhaps making some subpar decisions about the product currently at hand.


So, I wonder what it'll be like in a few years- will we look back and think "The Last Jedi was where it all went wrong"? Or, will we think "For all its faults, The Last Jedi brought Star Wars to the heights it is today."

Personally, I think (and I think any true fan would agree) that the latter is obviously preferable.

 

definitely preferable.

i've settled at: TLJ is a stepping stone. it serves, it's precarious, you might get your feet a little wet and how well you can tolerate that will determine your satisfaction, but ultimately it's a necessary and unexpected bridge to the next thing. it tells us flat out: all bets are off, there are no sacred cows. this is not going to go the way you think, indeed.

but i also think it says (quietly, more sensibly): don't worry, there's order here and this is still the saga you all know and love.

so will IX throw something insane at us? it just might. but we'll be prepared for it. and we know it'll all be okay in the end.

 

I like what Ken Napzok said about TLJ on the recent Jedi Council. It's the vegetables of the meal. You don't get your dessert if you don't eat your veggies

 

Actually it was a joke.

Rotten? Nope sorry.
Just because you didn't like your veggies doesn't mean they were rotten.

 

I do not believe that Rian/Disney/Lucasfilm do not actually care about surprising people or subverting expectations. I think they wanted to get rid of the old players to make room for the new ones and they felt the best way to do that was to make them unlikable - otherwise, people might miss them. Except for Leia, for some reason Leia gets to stay cool ... unfortunately she's passed so that doesn't work for them either.

For example, wouldn't it really subvert expectations if Rey got killed in Episode IX? No one would be expecting that. Or maybe Rey turns to the darkside completely and Finn/Poe have to fight against her? No one would be expecting that. But these sorts of things will never happen, because it was never about surprising people or subverting expectations. Luke deserved better. Rey doesn't yet. But that doesn't reflect the current priorities, so ... we got what we got. Has nothing to do with expectations or subversion. #opinion