Before the second phase of Marvel’s development, Guardians of the Galaxy, many people watched Marvel movies with the mindset of a popcorn blockbuster, why?
Because the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even though it has created a number of main characters such as Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and other “Avengers”, and even though it has changed the story and characters’ dialogues in the direction of life and normalization, it has never taken a different style and route from DC Comics. A hero goes out of his way to save the world. It’s as if a hero can only be called a hero if he saves the world.
But is that really the case? The Guardians of the Galaxy is an incredibly witty story that shows that you can be true to yourself and be the hero you always wanted to be.
A new age of heroes heading towards the galaxy and the universe.
According to the basic pattern of Hollywood commercial superhero movies, the heroic character often takes on a heroic aura right out of the gate, which is why in the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star-Lord, who shows off his gigantic dance moves, is considered by many to be the main character of the movie.
In the course of the story, the basic narrative pattern is always in the traditional mode. It is not until the end of the story, when all the viewers see that the supporting characters have completed their tasks and think that the next step is the showdown between Star-Lord and Ronan, that the movie gives its biggest twist and surprise.
At the end of the movie, while Star-Lord dances to attract Ronan’s attention, Rocket Raccoon and Dex work together to knock out the purple jewel in Ronan’s hand, Star-Lord gets the jewel and everyone works together to digest the huge power generated by the jewel and finally destroy Ronan.
Such a plot arrangement, rather than leaving Star-Lord to fight alone, is a better expression of the team spirit and the unique style of each member of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” hero team. This is where the development of the Marvel Cinematic Universe enters a new era.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of losers who seemed so weak at the beginning of the movie confront themselves, take advantage of their strengths, and work together to defeat the villain.
This unexpected and predictable ending virtually conveys to the audience that everyone can be a hero.
The biggest challenge to being a true hero is often oneself, whether or not one dares to be one’s true self.
At the same time, compared to the lone hero and tough guy characters portrayed in DC Comics and traditional Hollywood blockbusters, Marvel has truly taken a new path with Guardians of the Galaxy, where cooperation and unity are the true heroes of victory.
In Marvel’s movies, the world is not so dark and heavy, but full of optimism and hope, and the heroes fight against evil and villains as if they were a small group having a weekend group activity, always with optimism and high spirits.
In this new era of globalization and pacification, where people long for openness, friendship and love, and the pursuit and release of their dreams, the Bruce Wayne who grew up in the heavy darkness of reality is no longer so easily understood.
Just like today, we have drifted away from the wars of the past and the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Reuniting the Heroes: An Uncomfortable Infiltration of Values
In Avengers 1, we find that the heroes’ first team-ups are still heavily individualistic and heroic, and the loose sense of teamwork threatens to cause them a major crisis in the first half of the movie.
Maybe it’s the skill of working together, or the long hours of working together, or the unexpected success of Guardians of the Galaxy, but by the time we get to Avengers 2, it’s a lot more of a team effort against Hydra than it was at the beginning of the first film.
Iron Man’s fear of a future world crisis and his guilt over his fallen comrades lead him to create an even greater crisis by creating an artificially intelligent Ultron that he cannot control. The Avengers, who were once a monolithic team, have begun to shadow each other due to the different views and philosophies of the team members regarding the world situation.
The film’s story and action scenes and special effects are even more majestic and magnificent than the first film due to the increased production costs.
The increasing number of heroes and the increasingly complex relationships between the characters add a special flavor and atmosphere to the movie.
In terms of the commercial field and the overall layout of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers 2 is undoubtedly a success, or even a successful completion of its mission, but in terms of values and substance, it is a complete failure, even less than its predecessor.
Why? This is because the film does not base most of its values on universal values, as its predecessor did, but rather on American national values.
This results in a film that is a whitewash of harsh realities and a celebration of America. In the film, Iron Man creates an uncontrollable demon, Ultron, and when he discovers that Ultron cannot be controlled, he launches a campaign of destruction against Ultron.
Does this action and scenario look familiar to you?
Think of the Middle East, West Africa, and Afghanistan. Think of the mujahideen and bin Laden, and it’s a parallel development. In the case of the mujahideen, Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s faced armed aggression from the former Soviet Union, and a number of resistance forces, including the mujahideen, received most of their military and arms aid from the West, led by the United States.
This assistance continued until the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, when the Soviet Union withdrew its troops and the U.S., finding itself unable to exercise effective control over these rebel groups, turned against them, eventually setting the stage for the 9/11 attacks that became the cause of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. This absurd reality is turned into a plot for American heroes to save the world once again in “Fate 2”.
In the final battle of the film, S.H.I.E.L.D. interspersed with the plot of the use of space carriers to relocate a large number of civilians is even more uncomfortable to watch, the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq to carry out military operations in the course of how many civilians we mistakenly killed, let us put aside for the time being, on the film of the battlefield evacuation when the real appeared?
It is really unacceptable for a comic book movie to have such an ideological value.
Fortunately, in the later works of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the tone of diluting reality and returning to comics once again became the main idea of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
A New World in a Small Context
After the blockbuster Avengers 2, the second phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe came to a close with the astonishing, yet unique, Ant-Man.
Created in the early 1960s, the “Ant-Man” comic book series started out as a combination of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby’s newfound technological advances and comic books aimed at young adults, and it didn’t even have a formal place in the Avengers.
However, thanks to his unconventional, whimsical storyline and superpowers, Ant-Man quickly transformed from a minor character to an indispensable hero in the Marvel comic book world.
Before the release of the Ant-Man movie, not many people knew that Ant-Man was a heroic character, but in the eyes of ordinary people, an insect could be used as a metaphor for weakness and helplessness.
However, the movie beats up those who didn’t care for it with its interesting fight scenes and vivid and powerful imagery.
Compared to “Complex 2”, which did not clearly define itself, had a scattered plot and a collapsed ideological core, the greatest success of “Ant-Man” lies in its ability to define what it wants to achieve at the beginning of the film.
First of all, as a superhero movie, the investment cost is not too high, it put a lot of budget into the production of the special effects part of the film, which led to the film in fact on location and live action shooting production costs are not very abundant.
What to do? Not enough money, the plot comes to the rescue. Combined with the light-hearted tone of Ant-Man’s characters, the director and writers have positioned the Ant-Man movie as a light comedy genre movie.
The movie has a lot of natural and profound laughs in the first half of the film, so that although it is obvious that the first half of the story has been dragging, but never let the audience feel bored, a variety of laughs and all kinds of baggage can be said to save the film at the same time, more has become the “Ant-Man” series features and highlights.
And in order to make the characters’ actions and the accompanying jokes have the right effect, we have to mention another successful aspect of the movie: the casting.
The mix of old and new actors and the good-looking actress make the movie’s actors look good right from the start. In order to make the characters more vital and realistic, the film gives Ant-Man an unbearable encounter with life and a touching father-daughter relationship, and the family drama between Ant-Man and his daughter becomes another strong support for the film.
Perhaps due to the success of Ant-Man’s emotional interludes, in later comic book movies, we often see family drama and team bonding as important elements that contribute to the film’s twists, such as Iron Man and Spider-Man, Hawkeye and his family, and Iron Man and his daughter.
In short, the second phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers 2, was not as successful as it should have been, but instead, it was Ant-Man with a different flavor that brought the phase to a successful conclusion.
The constant appearances of the Avengers in this phase of the film meant that a major crisis was finally upon the Avengers.
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