The stakes in media, cinema, television, comic books and various forms of storytelling have never been higher, but also never been more meangingless.
The spectacle, and grandiosity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was actually really interesting. Things like that have existed, most obviously and pedantically, marvel comics, but in movies they’ve been fairly rare, or really non-existent. There were franchises, and functionally what might best be labeled side-films. Cheer’s had a spin off that was Frasier in a sense, but there was no real shared continuity between the shows.
Perhaps the closest thing in a sense was Star Trek, which began with a television show, morphed into movies, but with the Next Generation suddenly there was a completely different set of characters with virtually no relation, existing in the same universe, facing the same antagonists, and exploring the galaxy.
But to have a set of interlocked movies, that were both taking place in theoretically the same shared universe, but also moving along an arc towards a conclusion, where hero’s with their own origin stories were grouped into teams to face a larger threat was really something to see.
Personally I found most of the movies to be fairly bad, in spite of the charm of Iron Man, which really set this whole thing off, and was fundamentally about a flawed but charming protagonist, Marvel’s lesson learned was not about snappy dialogue and fun, but rather jacking up the stakes endlessly, with sappy overly melodrama.
I actually find it really hard to relate to say, Steve Rogers, who, portrayed by Chris Evans is just sort of perfect looking. Tall and handsome, with a square (but not too square) jaw, big muscles but not “jacked” just big, and great definition. Likewise Chris Hemsworth is legitimately sort of “not human” looking. But he gets a weepy crush on a human girl cuz… why? And I’m supposed to care that he is losing her, or goes back to Midgaard or whatever it is that’s going on in his life that I’m supposed to care for. But nonetheless the marvel films keep jamming in regular melodrama. It’s far more palatable when it’s Ant Man, because other than not aging, Paul Rudd is fairly normal looking. And at first his problems were relatively relatable. But by the time we get to the quantum realm and the end of all things, it’s just over the top.
Avengers Infinity war was somewhat interesting in that, of course, the heroes sort of lost. But of course they had to set up a sequel that allowed them to essentially redeem that, and of course they used a hackneyed device to get there, time travel.
What spat out of all that was something that I was really hopeful, and for the first time in years, excited about a Marvel property. Loki. Tom Hiddleston is great when he’s allowed to be smarmy and charming, but not as charming as he thinks he is. He’s wonderful at the role, and you can see hints of the tragedy that underlies his personality and sets him up to be so fun, but also tragic.
There’s a running thread to me of the Marvel movies I actually liked, where the protagonist is somewhat arrogant or even narcissistic, wisecracking, but flawed. Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the only real exception is Thor 3 which was just such a fun film, and Jeff Goldblum really stole the show, and he had to really steal it because Hemsworth and Mark Ruffalo were doing a great job of running away with it.
So Loki was a perfect set up for Tom Hiddleston to just have adventures. The Time Variance authority doing a kind of 48-hours set up, using a thief to catch a thief kind of thing. And I think they could’ve turned that into entire seasons where Loki comes to understand that most of what the Time Variance authority does is chase after other versions of Loki. And he could’ve constantly been trying to figure out how to slip away from them, being caught, and then eventually he could’ve had real opportunities to escape and not done it because, Loki wanted to have fun, and finally he was finding something to do where he was given “terrible purpose”.
Instead the stakes had to be jacked up, higher and higher. The time variance authority isn’t real, is a front, is a facade, there is no sacred timeline, there is, the kind of universe, the lion thing, like, whatever?
And fundamentally, I understand the logic of Disney, creating a Marvel ecosystem where they want the movies and shows and rides and toys and things to endlessly loop back in to each other.
Nothing can stand on it’s own. Nothing can just a good show, on it’s own, that you want to watch, that you can just enjoy. It has to dump you into a setting that can be used again later (to be fair to great effect in Deadpool) and Loki has to face large enemies, and clearly, before the allegations, the marvel cinematic universe was setting up the second big bad after Thanos, and that was Kang the conquerer. So it’s not entirely shocking they needed to jam him into this thing.
But this logic is emblematic of, and drives, the underlying drive for media to have become increasingly epic, and increasingly meaningless.
The Avengers can’t truly lose and have half the world end. It’s not really, like, a thing. People will hate a movie that ends in the world ending. There may be a parallel in the way that humanity seems truly to come to grips with our current existential crisis: climate change. Given how movies and shows always depict even truly ludicrous antagonists, villains, and problems as being utimately overcome, and often through a cheap trick at the end, or the hero persisting through his virtue, it’s understandable that people can’t come to terms with something so world ending.
But it’s sad, and it also remove almost any drama from these superhero movies. If someone is plotting to destroy the Earth, it’s not reasonable that the heros could lose that. On the flip side, if a movie is about a guy who might lose his girlfriend, there are real stakes there. Sure, most romcoms don’t lead to the protagonist losing, but I can think of a couple of exceptions, succesful ones, where they don’t get back together. I’m thinking of The Breakup and Weatherman. It’s believable that Vince Vaugh won’t get Jennifer Aniston back in The Breakup, and likewise Nicholas Cage in Weatherman can not get back with his ex-wife, and the world continues on.
If Thanos kills half the population, if Ultron saves the Earth through eliminating humans, if the Dark Elves use the macguffin that’s somehow in Natalie Portman to destroy the nine realms, then uh, what happens? The MCU ends? No. Obviously not. Disney is not going to let it die. So the stakes are kind of meaningless.
There’s the other issue that Marvel has, where these big strong people punch each other through buildings, and it has no real meaning. I was struck by this most when watching a non-marvel property, Invincible, which is somewhat interesting, but people are punching and bleeding and getting crashed through a 4-foot concrete wall. So they’re “tougher” than a human, but we can’t tell how tough, exactly. When Thor hits someone with Mjolnir, they’re like, dead. You wouldn’t get up from that. Except they often do. Except not sometimes. And so, even in the smallest of fights, there’s no real stakes. We have no idea if these characters can even kill each other. The Hulk appears to be invincible effectively, but at least when he’s fighting people he’s dumb, and angry, and will often do something they don’t actually want, so there are stakes. The stakes are how will Hulk screw up their plan. But when Iron Man is thrown into a wall we know he basically has to be okay, and so there are no stakes.
It’s truly just bad storytelling. If people can be hurt, can die in a given fight, in a scene, in the climax, then we actually worry a bit for characters (at least those we like) and wonder what will happen to them. But most of the time, in Marvel, Star Wars, Star Trek, and these other big properties, the stakes are so high, so epic, they are meaningless.