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Avengers is why they invented the term INSTANT CLASSIC

posted 12 years ago by SloberDon
96 replies | jump to latest

It's so good to see Marvel's The Avengers and the term INSTANT CLASSIC is forever linked when describing this amazing movie.

I don't remember the last film that instantly registered this much this fast and stayed this talked about even over a year later. The other top box office champs did the slow burn and grew on people. It's well noted that Avatar was simply a gimmick FX film that everyone had to see but most agree it's a bad film and was terribly written.

Reading these boards over the past year, I see a lot of comparisons to Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and that seems to be right on the mark looking back. Most everyone loves Avengers no matter age or gender. That's also a very tough thing to pull off considering the genre and subject matter.

Admit it everyone, Avengers is an outstanding film on every level and truly worthy to be called an instant classic.

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] krieg8814254 10 years ago

Out of the darkness, into the light (Hydra)
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?

And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand of I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Some minds are like concrete. Thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

[–] Uberiffic 10 years ago

The writers of this film must be very proud. Honestly, Tolstoy or TS Eliot would be jealous had they tried to write modern screenplays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCBiJ3QJnk&feature=player_embedded

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] SpanishRicky 10 years ago

I will be generous with my Marvel today. I will sprinkle compliments and uplifting words everywhere I go. I will do this knowing that my words are like seeds and when they fall on fertile soil, a reflection of those seeds will grow into something greater.

[–] SwissCheeze 10 years ago

I don't know how anyone can complain about Avatar being a "gimmick" (because stuffing a bunch of superheroes into one movie isn't a gimmick AT ALL....yeah, sure) and claim otherwise with the Avengers. Likewise, I don't know how someone can claim Avatar was badly written and yet proclaim The Avengers as a masterpiece. Its laughable and stinks of fanboyism. What did The Avengers do besides "zomg!!1! All mah favorit heroez in one MOVIE!!111!!"? Where is the originality? Where is the exceptional dialogue?...Heck did it even do anything new and daring with SFX? Because AT LEAST Avatar did that and broke new ground for cgi in film.

[–] WeirdRaptor 10 years ago

Actually, it didn't. The visuals in Avatar were just okay.

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf

[–] SwissCheeze 10 years ago

Are you purposefully being a biased dolt?

Its the first film to use full performance capture to such exquisite detail. BAR NONE. A HUGE leap in the visual effects world. Previous efforts, such as Gollum from Lord of the Rings, had to utilize animators who used Serkis's performance as a reference in order to animate the character. In Avatar they actually broke beyond the glass ceiling and used technologies that allowed full translation of each actor's performance into a digital character, thereby eliminating the middleman. Not to mention the use of digital set pieces that you could ACTUALLY navigate through with a camera...to claim that it wasn't an innovative tour-de-force in the VFX world is pretty funny. You must be high.

In contrast, what did Avengers bring to the table in terms of VFX besides collapsing skyscrapers (which we've seen in every Transformer movie) or the PS2-esque alien army? Even the aesthetic of the film was generic, with Avatar you had a special effects team creatively design an entire alien planet, with its own unique ecosystem, plant life, etc. In Avengers....what? Avatar obviously isn't a classic, its loaded with flaws and suffers from a hackneyed story, but to praise The Avengers and subsequently trash Avatar....hahahahaha, thanks for the laugh. You have to be a bit delusional to think Avengers is somehow in another league than Avatar.

[–] WeirdRaptor 10 years ago

And the film still looked like a cartoon. I didn't believe the world it took place in at all. You can rant on and on about the minute details, but it won't change the simple fact that Avatar is an utterly moronic movie that doesn't even look that appealing. The Lord of the Rings looked better than this, and behold, it actually made use of sets and practical effects to build the fantastical elements of its world. Gollum holds up better than anything on Pandora. The film also brought nothing to the table that Hollywood actually needs. On top of that the story as strictly stock, the writing was insultingly preachy, the characters were flat, and every concept in the film was stolen. It is a children's film pretending to be a big boy movie.

You're the one who is delusional if you think that Avatar is in the same league as The Avengers. The latter is beyond any shadow of a doubt the better movie, by far. You're the purposefully biased dolt.

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf

[–] SwissCheeze 10 years ago

And yet The Hobbit films and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes used Avatar motion capture technologies to bring to life their characters. Technical masterpieces such as Life of Pi and Gravity used Avatar's 3D technology to create their worlds. And a slew of films (including The Avengers) were influenced by Avatar and needlessly forced 3D into their films to emulate Avatar's success. If you need to lie to yourself to elevate Avengers to its inflated status, be my guest. The rest of the film world and film tech enthusiast know which film was really more influential to the visual effects industry.

And Avatar is very much in the same league as the Avengers. Both are generic films and suffer from lackadaisical plots and borderline caricature esque characters. None of them deserve over a 6/10, but AT LEAST Avatar had more ambition (although it is far from Cameron's best). You want to talk about gimmicks? Tell me how stuffing a bunch of superheroes in one movie is not a gimmick? Tell me how you can criticize Avatar for using 3D as a gimmick...when The Avengers did the SAME EXACT THING (in fact, their 3D was done through a lazy post-conversion process and looked abysmal). Criticizing one movie for its flaws and yet praising another movie that has THOSE VERY SAME FLAWS (and more) is laughable, your fanboy is showing.

[–] WeirdRaptor 10 years ago

No, your fanboy is showing. Also, you don't even argue that cinema needs anything Avatar brought to the table. The only thing you've accomplished is wasting my time with a list of movies that took the wrong lesson from film history.

No, it isn't. Avatar is the only generic film here. The fact that you failed to notice the character development and nuances in Avengers shows how shallow you really are. Avatar wasn't ambitious. It just took a gimmick that will soon die as far as it can go. And making a crossover movie is not a gimmick. The previous films set up the fact that all these characters exist in the same universe. The Avengers was just the logical conclusion.

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf

[–] SwissCheeze 10 years ago

Fanboy of what? BOTH films are mediocre. Avatar having the slight edge for not being Transformers stuffed with superheroes. What am I a fanboy of?

And did you seriously imply that Avengers is a nuanced film...excuse me....bwhahahahahahahahahaha. You're saying that Avatar took a gimmick that 'will soon die as far as it can go', and yet the Avengers pathetically used that very same gimmick in a cheap post conversion process. And YES, stuffing a bunch of superheroes IS as gimmicky as it gets. The fact that you're even denying this shows how biased you are.

From Merriam-Webster:

gim·mick
noun \ˈgi-mik\
a method or trick that is used to get people's attention or to sell something.

Yes, putting a bunch of superheroes into a movie and having them fight transformer esque robots, while having a hot girl in black leather flaunt her body as she easily kills CGI heavy alien army...all in cheap post conversion 3D.

Nooooo...not a gimmick AT ALL! lol.

[–] WeirdRaptor 10 years ago

No, only one of them is mediocre. Avatar has no edge over anything. Any moron could have made it. You're obviously a bitter DC fanboy.

I never said The Avengers was a deeply nuanced film. I said the characters have nuance, moron. No, having a superhero team up isn't a gimmick. It was a story-telling device that has been build up through the narrative of the precious films. The fact that you insist that it is a gimmick when it's not shows how biased you are. The fact that you are unable to detect the overacting story that is being told from movie to movie is very telling of your inability to actually look beyond the surface.

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." -Gandalf

[–] scotts863 10 years ago

Avatar has no edge over anything. Any moron could have made it.

Pretty much true. Any moron could have written Avatar and in fact did. The only thing that mess delivered was visual treats. Any moron could not have delivered 3D like that.

[–] Darwinskid 10 years ago

First of all its a matter of opinion, if one likes The Avengers more than Avatar then so be it but to say there was little to nothing ambitious about The Avengers is just nonsense. If it were that easy to make a shared universe on film and to produce a critically acclaimed and widely successful ensemble film combining several characters from different sub-genres in action/adventure then why did it take Hollywood so long to crack it? Warner Bros. only jumped on the bandwagon after Avengers proved to be the biggest hit of 2012 and decided to use Man of Steel, originally intended to be a stand alone venture, as its starting point. Not only has Warner Bros. begun to create their own cinematic universe through their DC properties on-screen but Universal Pictures is also planning to re-create their famous movie monsters and make a new cinematic monster-verse which is supposed to kick off with The Mummy( But given the events in the recent Dracula Untold it might as well be considered as the real kick starter). Shared and concrete continuity is big now and everyone in the entertainment industry wants their share for their own properties all thanks to the success of The Avengers and what it accomplished.

Avatar was technically ambitious, but story-wise it was pretty much a copy and paste of other and much better told stories from classic science fiction like Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series.

Of course, the visual accomplishments of Avatar cannot be negated as its influence with motion capture has inspired other studios to use the same technology for their own tent pole films and well 3D is everywhere now and the technology has improved and is considered an effective way to boost extra revenue for a film's profits and to keep the theater going experience relevant in today's high tech society where streaming is just a click of a button.

Also, the 3D for Avengers was pretty good, at least when I saw it in theatres back in 2012 that is.

[–] SwissCheeze 10 years ago

Why?

1.Because the modern age superhero film craze didn't start until X-men (2000) or arguably Spider-man (2002).

2.Secondly, many of the famous superhero movie, early on during the superhero movie craze, were with different studios. X-men is with Fox, Spider-man was with Sony, Hulk (a box office failure) was with Universal,Batman Begins and Superman Returns (not even Marvel) were with WB. Therefore, for LEGAL reasons it would be impossible to do so, given the superhero films that were out there in the past

3. In order to create a shared superhero universe you actually have to have solo films, which takes time in itself. It took 4 years to lead up to the Avengers (after Iron Man and Incredible Hulk in 2008) and that was after Marvel was popping superhero movies out like a pregnant Walmart mom on welfare.

4. It was proposed during the mid-90s with a Batman/Superman crossover, but when the abysmal Nic Cage Superman film failed to take flight and the Batman series tanked due to the gag-inducing Batman & Robin, those plans were dropped and WB decided to do a reboot instead (Batman Begins)

5. CROSSOVERS HAVE BEEN DONE BEFORE. Godzilla vs King, Alien vs Predator, Freddy vs Jason, Destroy all monsters. They are cheap gimmicks that used to pull in audience members from both fanbases.

You are acting like this is some abstruse or esoteric concept that required the most brilliant minds because it was so creatively demanding. Have a bunch of superheroes in their solo films, drop hints of a team formation in said films, have them show up in one film, have them fight each other and let go of their egos to become one team, and beat the bad guys......hardly anything that requires a Shakespeare or even a Cormac McCarthy for that matter. And I suppose you're right, now that The Avengers is a huge financial success, many studios are trying to emulate its success by forcing crossovers down our throats (maybe one day we will get a Flipper/Free Willy crossover! One can only dream!), but I don't see how thats a good thing given that these crossovers always come across as a cheap way of getting butts in seat. On the contrary, Avatar's 3D influence has been needlessly used on plenty of films but at least some films have actually used the technology to enhance the film viewing experience and use the technology artfully (Gravity, Life of Pi, Hugo,etc). What are crossovers doing to artistically enhance the world of cinema? Its a cheap gimmick.

And YES Avatar's story is generic...but so is Avenger's. Whoopdeedoo, a team of superheroes fight off an evil alien army, there is nothing remotely original here. It is formulaic and as generic as it comes...putting a gimmick in it doesn't suddenly make it original. If you were to tell me that 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, or Blade Runner were way better than Avatar, I'd definitely agree there but the plot in Avengers is nothing to write home about. There is nothing of substance or value, so taking a dump on one mediocre movie (avatar) while praising another (the avengers) is beyond hypocritical [ESPECIALLY when one of your criticisms is that said mediocre movie used a Gimmick that The Avengers used itself]

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] Stenian 9 years ago

Definitely.

[–] ScottBang 9 years ago

Has it just been topped by Civil War? Is it even possible?

[–] scotts863 9 years ago

Avengers is still considered the better film.