Episode 6: The State of the Super Hero Movie

February 15, 2011

Featuring Matt Anderson and Ben De Bono

Superhero movies are more popular than ever, but is that truly a sign of the golden age of comic book films or are the genre’s best days behind it? Find out, in this episode of The Sci-Fi Christian.

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6 comments on “Episode 6: The State of the Super Hero Movie

  1. Whoohoo! 9th hit on Google when I looked you up! Thanks for the shout out to Mercy Trails…you guys are gonna be big!
    I foresee a book in your future…
    =)

    Gonna send you some link love on Facebook! =)

  2. Michael Sep 20, 2011

    Matt’s mention of “The Magician’s Nephew” being not well-known made me wonder: Do you guys have opinions on the publishers’ renumbering (and then, with the advent of the film series, the re-renumbering) of the Narnia books? My preference is for the original numbering (i.e., original chronological order of publication, where LWW is #1).

  3. Michael Sep 20, 2011

    I think perhaps you were a bit premature in proclaiming a “superhero renaissance” and pointing to this summer’s offerings as evidence. An EW critic, at least, thinks so, too: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20512989,00.html. (And I don’t know if you think so, too, now that the summer has actually come and gone — I guess it’s not entirely fair to criticize your thinking several months ago.) Only time will tell.

    You are also WRONG WRONG WRONG (three times, right, Ben?) about both “Superman: The Movie” and “Spider-Man 3,” but I will have to defend them at some length some other time. 🙂

  4. I would love to hear your defense of both Superman and SM3. Outside of nostalgic reasons, I’m genuinely curious how anyone can consider the second half of Superman to be good. No one’s taken me up on my challenge to defend it so please send it in when you get a chance!

    I think you’re right about us jumping the gun on the superhero renaissance. We were pretty optimistic about the summer slate of superhero movies and, as you can see from our reviews, outside of X-Men First Class that optimism really didn’t pay off. Right now, I think the genre is a mixed bag. There will be some standouts along the way, but it’s going to be dragged down by a lot of mediocrity. This summer is a perfect example of that.

    For Narnia, I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, the term “chronicle” implies chronology so the new numbering is more accurate. On the other hand, I think the story works better in the original order. My box set has the new numbering but I’ve taken the books out and reordered them the way they were originally. It looks a bit off on the shelf, but it makes me happy:)

  5. Michael Sep 21, 2011

    I like your Chronicles solution!

    Yes, I will definitely try to write up a defense of the movie as a blog post, sooner rather than later. Maybe in conjunction with the new Action #1 (when I get it — I get most of my books through a discount mail service, which is better for the wallet but means waiting to jump into the fray!).

    And, actually, no sooner had I posted my comment than you actually in that very podcast tempered your optimism about a “renaissance.” So thank you for gracefully not pointing out how I’d stuck my foot in my mouth!

  6. Hi Ben. Your criticism of the Lex Luther Character in the Superman movies is valid. If you have not seen Smallville I’d really like to strongly encourage you to watch the series. Both Clark Kent and Lex Luther is redeemed in that terrific series. Like I’ve said before. I don’t care much for Superman. To highlight this, the only comic I bought of Superman was ‘The Death of Superman’, and I remember when he came back, that I said I wish he stayed dead. Smallville however I adored and love very much.

    Wow Ben that is a very interesting thesis on post-modernism and super hero movies, indeed a book is in there. Not food for thought, a bit of a banquet of thought.

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