Superheroes (and Star Wars)! - A Stream of Consciousness Example

A Story by D. L. Vaccaro

THE SETTING:

I was doing all my regular dorky things... listening to Audio Lectures on African History, sitting on my bed, reading spider-man comics... and I was going through one of the old Annuals from the mid-90s... and then the first one from 64, then the classic wedding of MJ and Peter Annual from the mid 80s...

WHAT AM I DOING:

Thinking...

DISCLAIMER:

Please forgive any and all typos, as I will be writing this very quickly as I think things.

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT:

Why do Superhero films have to have their own continuity... why not just make it like you'd make an annual. I bet script wise, a Annual comic is as much plot and dialog as a typical superhero flick. They have re-occurring characters, teams of the worst bad guys, and it would honestly be better written. Now, the only film even close to what I am talking about is the original Batman movie... no, not the Tim Burton-Michael Keaton Batman, the old 1960s TV cast. WHAM! BAM! POW! Yeah... that Batman movie... it was a lousy movie, but it was the times, the crappy costumes, the cheesy effects, the plot was decent... and it featured a whole TEAM of Gotham's worst enemies, working in tandem... not the bullshit of one villain, one hero... hero gets sidekick, now takes on two villains... like that is how it ever goes in Spiderman? NO! Half the time he's fighitng the Sinister Six, (Mysterio, Doc Ock, Shocker, Sandman, and 2 wild card spots with whichever other villains are popular at the time, at times its been Rhino and Chameleon, at other times the vulture and others... Point is... the Annual is a big story comic, its like 3 or 4 comics worth of material, in one stand alone comic that is like a hundred pages. Make the movies like the Annuals... this means, don't hire a hollywood writer. Hire the Marvel team that writes the comic book. DUH! They at least craft the plot, key dialog scenes, set the tone, maybe even supply artistic design ideas, etc, then let a hollywood team run with it, with Stan Lee and other key Marvel figures (and for DC fans, then the DC Creative Team) acting as executive producers. Make film an extension of comic, not a crude rendering of a hero in a film... I love super-hero movies, don't get me wrong. But what was Richard Donner thinking with having Lois sing "Can you read my mind?" or whatever that horrible song was. Lois Lane is many things, a singer, or a superstitious idiot, she is not. Margot Kidder gave a horrid performance... the new Superman in my opinion had her cast far better. Lois has a edge... she's got balls. She runs into the fire to get the story. She doesn't ever run away, she isn't weak. She's a strong woman. Not Margot Kidder... Margot Kidding me. And another thing... how come every superhero movie, the superhero has to have an active romantic interest? I mean EVERY Comic movie has had some sort of romantic interest. And of all of Spider-mans they still haven't made one with my absolute favourite, Black Cat, Felicia Hardy. They were going to put her in Spider-man 4... FINALLY! then it was canceled... and now we get a new Spider-Man in a month... It looks good... but rebooting... why do we have to keep telling the same stories over. Okay, I get that Bruce Wayne's parents were shot when they were leaving the movies by two robbers... you've only put it in nearly every batman movie. Oh look, he fought the Joker twice... two movies dedicated to batman vs Joker... seems a bit excessive... considering neither showed Harley Quinn, sometimes Batman gets to have a sidekick... other times not. Even though he's been through at least 3 Robins that I can think of Dick Grayson, the second Robin I believe, became Nighthawk, and then Batman was running around with a little boy... in spandex... it was kinda weird. But yeah Black Cat... I love her character. Despite the misconceptions... Black Cat was wearing black leather and lots of cleavage a decade before Catwoman... and Catwoman is stupid... her powers are what, super agility, maybe slightly enhanced strength... wow. Black Cat can change probability rates for bad things to happen to you if you are a threat to her or someone she loves... meaning, if you shoot a gun at her, it jams in the chamber and blows your hand off. If you go to punch her, you'll trip mid punch and fall on your face. AND she can f*****g fly. Just saying... Peter's first girlfriend was Betty Bryant, JJJ's secretary at the bugle. In the film trilogy, she and Peter only Flirt... in the comics they later become best friends, but then over time kinda grow apart, especially after the Daily Bugle burned down... then he goes to college, and meets Gwen Stacey. His first LOVE. Then she dies at the hands of the Green Goblin, like in the scene at the bridge in the first movie with Mary Jane and the train car of passengers both being dropped... that kinda scene... except his wedding caught her but the whiplash snapped her neck. ONe of her friends was Mary Jane Watson, and she and Peter flirted for years... they even dated awhile, got engaged... then he called it off. He didn't want to risk her life, knowing she could be used against him... he didn't want her to get hurt because of who he was. So they broke up... and that's when he and the Black Cat were an item. And they'd fight together like a duo... then he and Mj finally talked things over like 2 years later, and they do get married, almost overnight. Meanwhile, he picked up the blacksuit... in the secret wars. That was very cool... Years later Spiderman and MJ are no longer together (really long story) and Pete and Black Cat were Friends with Benefits for awhile... then that fell through, and then he dated a CSI chick in Manhattan that works for the NYPD... but when she figured out who he was, she broke up with him, and now they keep hinting that him and MJ might reunite... again... D****t. Black Cat! BLACK CAT! Attica! ATTICA! Whoops, sorry, I dunno what that was... Flashbacks... Anywho... I love how in the 60s, Ironman was publically known as Tony Starks, personal body guard... he actually did have a secret identity, unlike the movies. He has since come out, and unmasked, but only relatively recently. Ah... all these thoughts about superhero movies... and what's wrong with the plots... its like a fan of the old trilogy mocking the new trilogy... "At least Empire didn't have Jar Jar and the bad acting of just about everyone not named Natalie Portman..." Then the new trilogy fans... all three of us... we reply with, "At least our films had good effects and completed scenes BEFORE they were released... I mean George Lucas has to go back and fix his mistakes from those movies so many times... so many bad cuts... horrible effects, bad sound design, by modern standards... that its hideous... he had to go back in and cover up the strings holding up the X-Wing Fighters... and does anyone else remember the firecracker they sparked off when the Death Star exploded? Its like they put a firecracker, in the model of the Death Star and just in one take, shot it blowing up in front of a black curtain. The New Trilogy... have you ever seen better backdrops, better lightsaber duels... Obiwan vs Vader was lame... it was like watching two Geriatrics playing ice hockey. Now Obi-Wan vs Anakin... that was the best f*****g light saber battle of all time. All-time. People say Anakin is just a whiny complainy b***h... how could that worm of a man become Vader... i.e. THE man. You don't get him then, he got pissed off at how things were, and was not satisfied with waiting... he was impatient... always... but one day, something snapped. Seeing Mace Windu, a guy who was the pinnacle of the entire order, prepare to use deadly force rather than discussion, democracy, and debate. He got it. There is no Good Side or Bad Side... as Obi-Wan would put it, 'from a certain point of view'... that's when he stopped whining, stopped taking the bullshit, he saw he had the power to take the universe, he didn't have to play by anyone's rules... but after losing Padme, and with the Jedi all but dead, he was left with no choice. He hated what he had become, he hated life. He isolated himself, and routinely killed people because he could, just to release his rage at all of existence... he was always impatient, even as vader. one failure, one piece of bad news, and he wouldn't even use his lightsaber, he'll choke you with the force, as if you were a fly to him. Amazing character... but you see, he has to be the way he is, to be the way he is later... that being said, the best scenes of Lord Vaders are when he still has his body. Hayden did a great job as the victorious prideful, arrogant, power thirsty, ruthless, Lord Vader. Far more fierce than his predecessors... Maul and Dooku. Perhaps even more powerful and fearsome than Palpatine himself. He slays hundreds of younglings, simply because he doesn't need any future threats to his power. He eliminated future competition, like a Boss. He hunted down the Trade Federation and destroyed them, like a Boss. He almost beat Obi-Wan Kenobi, and got his limbs severed... like a Boss. The New Trilogy also shows how the Republic was crumbling, how it wasn't something worthy of restoration... and it provided an excellent post-modern recreation of the rise of Roma, from inept corrupt Republic to consolidated, organized, Imperials. The Emperors were viewed in many instances as demi-Gods themselves."