Bank Holiday Special: Movie Bob vs The Avengers

Haven’t written anything on here for a while – basically I found a thing called Game Maker and proceeded to sink all of my time into it.

Since it was pretty much Yahtzee’s fault for showing it to me through making Poacher on it (which you should totally play – even if, like me, you suck at platformers) – I have spent the rest of my time flitting between The Escapist website and the Extra Credits website (for they struck out on their own after leaving The Escapist) looking for tips and inspiration on what to do with it.

Having filled myself to the gills with games, gaming and the internet personalities who talk about games – I’ve decided to spend this bank holiday looking at something completely different (films) and something I know absolutely nothing about (comics). [Also, I’m trying to stave off the habit of not writing anything on here for long stretches to the point where I forget that I even set this thing up]

So, for your entertainment and the sake of my sanity, I present to you this special playlist: “Movie Bob” Chipman vs The Avengers…

(Also, if you are not completely sick of games I encourage you to check out Bob’s Youtube channel and have a look at The Game Over-Thinker [which probably deserves a post by itself] )

The List.

Intermission: Decade of the Nerd – published 1 January 2010 6:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Avengers Assemble! – published 9 April 2010 5:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Iron Man 2 – published 7 May 2010 5:00 pm

Intermission: The Spoiler That Changed the World – published 7 May 2010 5:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Comic-con 2010 – published 30 July 2010 5:00 pm

Intermission: Stop Blowing My Mind! – published 17 September 2010 5:00 pm

Intermission: Stop. Hammer Time! – published 17 December 2010 6:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: The 2010 MovieBob Awards – published 7 January 2011 6:00 pm

Intermission: Stars and Stripes – published 1 April 2011 5:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Thor – published 6 May 2011 5:00 pm

Intermission: What’s What in Thor – published 13 May 2011 5:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Captain America – published 22 July 2011 5:00 pm

Intermission: What’s What in Captain America – published 22 July 2011 5:00 pm

Intermission: The Big Tease – published 29 July 2011 5:00 pm

Intermission: The Loose Ends of The Avengers – published 23 September 2011 5:00 pm

Intermission: Earth’s Mightiest Teaser – published 14 October 2011 5:00 pm

The Big Picture: Future Assembly – published 24 April 2012 5:00 pm

Escape to the Movies: Avengers – published 4 May 2012 5:00 pm

Intermission: What Was What in The Avengers – published 4 May 2012 5:00 pm

The Big Picture: Wrongs & Rights – published 8 May 2012 5:00 pm

Intermission: Earth’s Whitey-est Heroes – published 25 May 2012 5:00 pm

Intermission: Hype-er Time – published 1 June 2012 5:00 pm

Intermission: Avengers: The Down Side of Up – published 10 August 2012 5:00 pm

In My Opinion…

Since this is supposed to be an opinion blog and not a scrapbook – I guess I should add a few of my own thoughts to this post.

I’m not going to even attempt to expand on what Bob has said above – it would be absolutely pointless. He has a much, much broader and deeper knowledge on this topic than I would ever have the inclination to gain. That’s why I chose Mr. Chipman as our teacher in this little exercise.

Let’s face it, here on the internet, you can throw a proverbial rock and find a dozen comic book nerds who will gladly wax lyrical on the topic of interconnecting continuity who are prone to creaming their boxers at the slightest detail and declaring vendettas on your first born for the merest incomprehension of the most obscure side-references.

Where MovieBob differs is in his broad acceptance that people like myself even exist – people who may display a passing interest in the topic, their interest piqued by the scale and complexity of their world, but in no need of having the entire Marvel Universe encyclopaedia force-fed into their cranium.

I freely admit that I’m not particularly fond of the superhero genre (could be I’ve seen too many bad ones in the past featuring flat, uninteresting characters and ridiculous scenarios) and, save for the first Iron Man film (which I did enjoy), I’ve seen none of the above films and am in no real rush to rectify that situation.

Strange then that I would devote a whole post (and waste a bank holiday) to them. Well, I may not have much interest in these particular films but that is not to say that I am without admiration for what Marvel has achieved by pulling this off. I mean they took five separate films and, with a handful of unobtrusive little nods, references and cameos, pulled them into one continuity. [and to top it off they let Joss Whedon put the cherry on the top] This – as Bob has pointed out above – could have real implications in other areas of the film industry.

The Horror, The Horror.

One area that that I can think of is one that I do enjoy – the horror genre – which has been in dire trouble for a long while now. Some in-roads to this has been tried in the past – most notably the Alien vs Predator films (if those count as horror) and Freddy vs Jason (which later got a couple  one-shot comics which threw Ash from The Evil Dead films into the mix – for some reason… I guess the fans liked the idea.)

These, at best, could be classed as re-boots – coming way after the last hurrahs of any of the franchises involved. There was one speculative crossover at the tail-end of the slasher era, specifically in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday.

This was the first Friday the 13th film made after New Line (creators of the Nightmare on Elm Street series) acquired the rights to the property. One of the more bizarre editions to the franchise (aside from possibly Part VII: A New Blood – which experimented with telekinetic powers) it is mostly remembered, if at all, for it’s closing shot which showed Freddy’s trademark glove dragging Jason’s iconic hockey mask down into the earth.

This is not the crossover moment I was referring to – merely a bit of fan-boy bait and a cynical (and failed) attempt to breath new intrigue into the sub-genre. The one I’m thinking of is a piece of intermittent lore concerning a minor character in the film – Creighton Duke – a bounty hunter who vows to rid the world of Jason Voorhees once and for all.

This character was so much larger than life than your average slasher victim, knew so much more than he ought to and had an established back story that told how he had dispatched the worst of the worst serial killers – that the speculation was (or at least the opportunity was there) that he would become the anti-slasher – the guy who finally put paid to the various villains of the bloated slasher genre: starting with Jason then Freddy then who knows… Michael Myers maybe.

The Duke was, in fact, killed during the events of this film but, this being the slasher genre, death is a cheap thing and can be circumvented under the right circumstances. Besides, who wouldn’t have liked to see the clash of personalities of him teaming up with Dr. Loomis in a Halloween film or witnessing the nightmares of a killer of killers in an Elm Street film? [Anyway, that seems to be more a task for the fan-fiction writers to be getting on with]

Crossing The Line.

I’m not suggesting that everything from this point forward should (or indeed will) be subject to some kind of team-up or vs scenario. I don’t think anyone is really crying out for a return to the strange episode in cultural history which gave us Robocop vs Terminator, Superman vs Aliens or Judge Dredd vs Batman. (but I could stand a couple more like Batman: Dead End) We certainly don’t need something like Transformers vs Godzilla or Twilight meets Harry Potter.

I’m not even saying that this process should be restricted to already established franchises. It is infinitely conceivable that a studio could release a handful of seemingly unconnected films (possible from different genres) which nobody would suspect are linked (that way, not even guys like Bob Chipman would have the advantage of foreknowledge). Perhaps you could have a romantic comedy which, when the two leads go to a bar for their first date, you can spot the grizzled detective of your police drama knocking back whisky in the background. Or you are watching a standard slasher film until that same couple, having finally got it together in the third act, show up as one of the victims – leading to a crossover film where the grizzled cop is charged with the task of hunting down the killer.

This has, of course, been attempted before. For example the films of Kevin Smith are all loosely connected by a continuity (known as the View-Askewniverse)  or, when condensed into one film, the world of Sin City. But I foresee an influx in these types of events and, inevitably, some will be good and some will suck. In either case, it’ll give people who like to pour over detail and examine and speculate connections plenty to do and a sharp increase of posts like this.

Anyway, that’s more than enough from me – enjoy the playlist and keep ’em pealed for all those future connections.