Why the Avengers movies are just fads
Imagine the following scenario: It's 2022. Video stores have resurrected themselves somehow and a twelve year old kid is browsing the Action section for a good Friday night movie. He comes across The Avengers and gives it a rental. In between orgasms of awesomeness, he is scratching his head in confusion. "Did I miss something? Who are these characters? How do they connect? What is SHIELD? How'd he get that suit?"
So he goes back to the store and looks up Thor. He watches it and is even more confused than he was before. So he rents Captain America. Then he has to rent Incredible Hulk. And the Iron Mans. Get my point?
Don't get me wrong, I'm hyped for The Avengers. I just think it can only be experienced NOW. These movies are pretty much impossible to hold up because you have to see the other films just for one to leave an impression.
Again, I don't for one second believe that this movie's gonna blow. Though I am upset that the horrible miscast Hulk film was for naught as he was recast for this movie. While making several films as an experience is a cool idea, it dates your movie considerably. And given that only one of these precursors has actually been good,(Still haven't seen CapAm) it only makes it all the more frustrating. I've said it before and I'll say it again: All this hype better be worth it.
Angry
I don't think it's a "fad." It's just part of an overall series. And I don't think that by 2022 kids will have forgotten who the Avengers are. There's just no way. Marvel is going strong and I think the comic lines are going to keep running so nobody is going to be THAT confused by who Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America are.
It's a lot more ambitious than people are really giving it credit for. Yeah, it does have this grand continuity that may confuse people down the road, but I think in the same sense that a kid could pick up a comic book without having read the entire run and still kind of go with it and still enjoy it and follow as it goes along, hopefully something in the same spirit will translate to film. I think we can give audiences a little more credit than that, I doubt in 20 years from now anyone young enough to be confused would care too much and just have fun and anyone old enough should learn how to use the internet if they have further questions.
Your logic is kind of faulty. For one thing comic books hold the same formula and they were still very popular for decades and collected. Ever read a comic book and see a small aside that says "See Issue 41 of Incredible Hulk"? Well, fans go out to get the comic and are caught up. Marvel has basically conducted these movies as a series with their own universe and their own continuity and has made it an experience rather than a line of disconnected films. I think they will hold up for years basically because they have much more to offer than the mere hooks of SHIELD and whatnot.
The movies don't make it difficult to understand who is who and what is what. For one thing Nick Fury only makes an appearance at the finale of Iron Man and hints at a storyline, so it's barely confusing, and SHIELD is a presence in Thor where we know what their deal is without having to suffer meaningless exposition.
The series is much easier to follow than you're giving it credit for. And as WalkAway said, these heroes have thrived for almost a century and have survived convoluted storylines and crises, these movies aren't their tickets to immortality since these characters have been popular before the movies. And will continue to be so long after the Avengers movie has come and gone.
Audiences are much smarter than you're giving them credit for, to be honest. Thor makes it clear they're a malevolent organization, and the rest of the movies carry on that storyline. It's not complicated and hopelessly convoluted like The Matrix.
Plus The Lord of The Rings also followed the formula of connecting films as did The Pirates of the Caribbean films and they're still considered relevant works of the fantasy and action genre.
Yeah, I'm not seeing any logic in this argument.. you make it seem like these movies can't exist without one another when they're all their own standalone films.
^Incorrect, my friend. The point of making these movies is so they can all be experienced together. Having watched all these movies, I can safely say only one or two has actually stood on its' own.
it's a series. It's like someone watching Return of the Jedi first or watching The Matrix Revolutions first or watching Return of the King first... it's the end of the story, you have to watch the beginning and middle of it for it to make sense, it's not unusual -- there are a lot of series with an overarching story.