theplatypus wrote:stip wrote:I'm genuinely surprised at some of the comments on the technical work in the movie, since that's been spoken of very positively in the reviews that I've read. But I just knows whats I likes, and don't have the vocabulary or knowledge to really unpack it. It looked good, but it wasn't like this was seeing Jurassic Park or Avatar or Matrix or Fellowship of the Ring where I felt like I was watching something groundbreaking in terms of the effects and visual design of the movies.
I've been thinking about this
I think Bada's comment about BP looking like a CW superhero show is very harsh (nothing looks as bad as a CW superhero show) but it does point to some of the choices they made in this movie, that are consistent with choices Marvel seems to mandate for all their movies, and why they stand in sharp contrast to a few scattered images here and there.
We've all seen that video about Marvel's color grading and how that makes the end product look that much flatter, but tbh I think the major culprits of Marvel's "flat", "drab" look are the cinematography and the production design. They tend to use colors that harmonize visually. Optically, there are colors that, when placed together, trick your mind into believing you are seeing a muted version of both. So if you put two colors like grey and red together, then your mind will make the red appear more grey and the grey more red. This happened to some extent during this movie, but there are a few brief moments with really beautiful vistas and color combination (I am thinking of that heaven-dimension-ghost place they visit a few times, and a few of the Wakanda wide shots, which made me go "whoa").
I think this speaks to the fact that Marvel seems to be entirely story-driven in their approach (to the detriment of the end product) and they don't use these cinematic resources to furtheir their themes or speak to the characters' inner lives. This seems to be much more of a
Marvel thing than a
Disney thing. When you look at previs cards or color palette cards for the animated movies like Aladdin or Lion King, they begin previs talks with a color palette that corresponds to the emotional transitions in the movie. But the Marvel movies don't seem to have that level of color transition. This contributes to that stagnant feeling throughout.
What I think is the worst part is the lazy, straightforward, "boxy" cinematography, which this film also fell victim to. This may have to do with hiring primarily TV directors, but I think it's probably mandated by the studio. When was the last time you saw characters in silhouette or in shadow in a Marvel movie? When have they been underlit or had rim lighting separating them from the background? The cinematography of these movies is flat and uninspiring. Like I said earlier, there are moments here that seem lit like TV commercials (those fights by the waterfall, holy hell). When you do color photography you calculate the value range and contrast of f-stops between the colors to maximize your exposure. Hard to make production design pop when it inherently uses colors that harmonize too easily together.
tl;dr most of Marvel movies suffer from bad/boring production design and cinematography. This movie does too but it is able to get away from it for a few shots.
