So, in a new interview Meryl Streep said that movies have been "Marvel-ized" with largely one dimensional heroes and villains and it's made movies boring.

I tend to agree with her-- but I don't think that means Marvel movies are bad. I think the black and white nature of superhero stories work very well for Marvel movies but would be hard to pull off in other genres. What are your thoughts?

I don't know, it always comes off as dated and out of touch when people say things like that. It may be boring to them, but these are just classic good vs evil foundations that have been around in film and television for decades upon decades. Pointing to Marvel specifically, even if I'm personally not a fan of everything they are doing lately, seems like just pointing to the popular thing and throwing all of your baggage on it whether it warrants that or not.

6 minutes ago, MattAguilarCB said:

I don't know, it always comes off as dated and out of touch when people say things like that. It may be boring to them, but these are just classic good vs evil foundations that have been around in film and television for decades upon decades. Pointing to Marvel specifically, even if I'm personally not a fan of everything they are doing lately, seems like just pointing to the popular thing and throwing all of your baggage on it whether it warrants that or not.

Marvel gets pointed to because they have the largest footprint in the comic book movie landscape.

I agree that the good versus evil foundation has been around forever, you do need more than "good guy fight big mean bad guy" to make a story genuinely intersting. That's why superhero comics in the modern day are, arguably, better than some of the earlier ones because we see layers of nuance in the characters and, while Marvel has done that to a limited extent, the movies really do largely boil down to "team of good guys go against irredeemable bad guy who is just bad bad". And that works for that! It's great! It just is less interesting when you take superpowers out of the equation.

On 5/1/2026 at 5:53 PM, MattAguilarCB said:

I don't know, it always comes off as dated and out of touch when people say things like that. It may be boring to them, but these are just classic good vs evil foundations that have been around in film and television for decades upon decades. Pointing to Marvel specifically, even if I'm personally not a fan of everything they are doing lately, seems like just pointing to the popular thing and throwing all of your baggage on it whether it warrants that or not.

Maybe to further this a little bit, when people talk about declines in media, they are usually comparing the whole of the industry to the best of the past. Like we remember the great films, and forget those movies that don’t measure up. The film industry is huge and people are still experimenting and achieving things. There are still places where you can get that depth; and there are places for more straightforward characters and plots.

6 hours ago, BulkBogan said:

Maybe to further this a little bit, when people talk about declines in media, they are usually comparing the whole of the industry to the best of the past. Like we remember the great films, and forget those movies that don’t measure up. The film industry is huge and people are still experimenting and achieving things. There are still places where you can get that depth; and there are places for more straightforward characters and plots.

That is a pretty solid point. I think it would be interesting to do a quality comparison just with the basic box office entries for any given year over the past, say 20. Just look at what was out, what was popular, and if we see the same sort of patterns in the past but simply can't see them from the present.

2 hours ago, Nicole Drum said:

That is a pretty solid point. I think it would be interesting to do a quality comparison just with the basic box office entries for any given year over the past, say 20. Just look at what was out, what was popular, and if we see the same sort of patterns in the past but simply can't see them from the present.

For curiosity's sake, I took a peek at the biggest hitters of the 1990s, in box office terms. Titanic, Independence Day, The Matrix, Home Alone, Pretty Woman, The Lion King, Jurassic Park... Yes, The Phantom Menace is there and is not a great movie, but it feels a bit more diverse when compared to the Marvel era.

There's a lot to criticise Marvel for, both in terms of movie quality and its impact on the current Hollywood landscape, but I don't think this one is entirely fair. It's had its issues with bad guys, but it has strove to make a lot of them interesting and nuanced - Loki, Thanos, Killmonger, Winter Soldier, Gorr, Zemo, Xu Wenwu, Vulture, etc, I think there's enough there that's not just entirely black and white but where it at least aimed for compelling motivations, and likewise I don't think that many of its heroes are just plainly good without any sort of complexity to them