As comic fans, we are living in a time of great expectations. Comic book movies are being filmed and released at a pace some never dreamed possible. It wasn't very long ago that seeing our favorite superhero on screen was a pipe dream if our favorite hero didn't happen to go by the name of
Superman or
Batman and even then, what we were given may or may not have lived up to expectations.
The amount of "believability" our heroes could convey on screen was directly related to the limitations of the special effects technology available at the time. If you weren't happy with a stiff flying
Superman or a body builder size
HULK, there was no other option than to accept it for what it was (the best thing going at the time). You could be watching a film with your favorite hero, a well written story with great acting, but in the end you were left saying to yourself "someday they will make a super hero film that looks like a superhero film." There always seemed to be something lost in the action sequences.
IMO, 2002's
Spider-Man made the largest leap forward from everything that had gone before in the visual department. For the first time it seemed like you were not watching a man in a costume stiffly act while being suspended from a wire, but that you were actually swinging through New York with
Spider-Man. When he and The Green Goblin fought, you actually began to get the sense that these two characters were much stronger and faster than a human could be.
While the effects in CBM's have continued to improve since then, we have without a doubt, been let down on many occasions. The most memorable to me would be
X-Men: The Last Stand's portrayal of Dark Phoenix. It seemed to me that the studio's had surpassed their technology once again by attempting to step up to a character with more power and ability's needing to be brought to life and it came across as stiff.
That's what brings me to the point of this article. We have eight (that's right, eight) CBM's coming out over the next four months. While expectations are high for each and every one, I personally think
THOR and
Green Lantern carry the future of the genre squarely on their shoulders. Neither of these heroes can be faked. Both posses immense power and skill sets. Both are set in fantastical fictional settings. Setting the story's, acting and script's for both aside, both are visual puzzles that would not have even been attempted five years ago. If done properly, both of these films should almost certainly surpass anything that has gone before, from a visual standpoint.
Early indications on
THOR are good. It has not opened yet here in the states, but many of you reading this have already seen this film and give it extremely high marks. If Branagh has successfully brought all the mystical, powerful, fictional realm aspects of
THOR to life it raises my confidence level for Green Lantern. If
Green Lantern manages to capture the imagination, power and sense of grandeur that it should, the door is wide open for future CBM's.
No longer would a character not be considered due to a lack of technology. Between these two films, just about every visual power in comics, can, and hopefully, will be captured on film. Has technology finally caught up with the imaginations of comic book writers and artists? I certainly hope so because that would mean that no character is beyond technology's capability and the future of superheroes on film, has no limitations.
By TwitterButtons.com