Welcome one and all to our Saturday Club feature ‘Controversial Club’! As so much of our content is positive, charming and a lovely read we thought we’d start a weekly article where we can get a bit of rage out, or just generally be dicks! I introduce our controversial club, a place where we can all write about things that get on our nerves, rub us the wrong way and generally go against the norm.
Recently the Dark Universe has announced it’s being ‘reconfigured’ so we discuss what went wrong and our thoughts on shared universes.
Luke
Oh god, shared Universes… Where do I begin. I guess right here: EVERYONE, HERE IS A NEWS FLASH – YOU DON’T HAVE TO COPY MARVEL. IT’S OKAY TO CREATE A SERIES OF FILMS THAT DON’T SHARE A UNIVERSE.
Now that that’s out the way let me share my controversial thought of the week: The Mummy reboot was fine. It’s never going to win an award but they set out to make a film that was simply fun and in all honesty, I had fun watching it. I didn’t care for the script blah blah blah but that isn’t why I watched it – I watched it for some cool action set pieces and for Tom Cruise.
HOWEVER whilst the film was fine I just don’t see a point of a shared Dark Universe. MAYBE if you stop trying to fudge in a million things to one movie you could make a better movie – know WHY the Marvel universe had such a strong start? Because Iron Man was just Iron Man, they threw in a bunch of easter eggs but they did NOT try to stick a load of other heroes and villains into one movie.
Stop it!
Oh and DCEU – Fuck off. Keep Aquaman going but just… Fuck off.
Javier
Hard for me to comment as I haven’t seen the new mummy film. However I heard bad things. Basically I agree with Luke. Movie universes in general do annoy me as everyone thinks they can be the mcu. And they can’t! One name in particular creeps into mins, the DCU.
They rushed so much to compete with Marvel, who have spent years to become what they are, and had a good build up before their first ensemble movie. But were greedy and fucked it. I like most of the films by themselves but the universe feels so forced.
As for other franchises announcing universes before they even have one movie, it’s ridiculous. Make sure you have one good popular film first and then build on it, make sure people care about your characters. I’m looking at you Power Rangers and Dark Universe!!!
Will
Remember that time Marvel spent 4 years developing characters with individual films and very bold hints to a wider connecting universe. Then bam! We got Avengers and it worked perfectly! Well done Marvel pat on the back. However! You also spawned a desire in every other film studio to make meandering pointless shared universes… So fuck you too. Universal’s attempt to create the “Dark Universe” is the best example of this desperate copy cat style. Launching the worst movie of last year (The Mummy) trying to use the characters they have the rights to to make their lame monster film franchise. Good plan. Worked really well. Bravo. Basically everyone in Hollywood needs to take a step back. See that Marvel has cornered the market on the shared universe. Give it up. Let them have their fun.
Joe
Whilst I’m not a huge film-buff like these nerds above, I’m always interested when a new title that crosses the inter-universal planes of gaming existence appears – Saying this, however, the only time these sorts of shenanigans actually work are in fighting games – Games like Super Smash Bros, Marvel VS Capcom and Playstation’s All-Stars Battle Royale work because it revels in it’s ludicrousness, and harnesses it into fun, competitive gameplay… However smaller cameos and universe breaks (Such as Dante appearing in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne (Or as Luke demands I call it, Lucifer’s Call)) act as nothing more than silly distractions that add nothing to the overall experience than “Oh cool X character is in Y game”.
Salman
I really couldn’t give a shit about this whole Dark Universe stuff as I do not want to subject myself to weird kinda action movies starring Tom Cruise and other dudes making a mockery of the original Universal horror films. After the Mummy bombed I thought it was over and hearing that it’s going through some changes doesn’t really affect me that much since they’re going to be ass anyways. Suppose the next film does come out and it’s good, the other 2 that will follow suit will probably ass and it’ll be a pattern until bleh it’s over. Anyways I think movie universes are kinda cool, I got really burnt out on Marvel but seeing it grow and become the fucking absolute behemoth it is kinda makes me happy. Cause it all started from a pretty okay Iron Man film.
Anyways that’s all for me, if you’re upset about the Dark Universe whatever just shut up and watch the classic Universal horror films instead. Back to Monster Hunter for me!