noctorro wrote:I think the original writers/creatives had some cool and interesting ideas.
And then the corporate morons who know nothing about character writing and story writing came in with their demands and we ended up with this.
All the good and interesting parts were reduced to 1 line of dialogue. World building kept to a minimum and just here and now interaction and reactions.
This is pretty normal writing. You have pages and pages of notes with various conflicting ideas, and you pick a set that don't conflict and spam your first draft with them. Then you cut, again and again, removing the stuff that doesn't 'hang together', stuff that slows the story too much without moving it forward, and stuff that -oops- does actually conflict with the other things you wrote. You leave a few dangling threads to give yourself as much flexibility for a sequel as possible while still giving the story closure.
Anybody remember Iron Man 1? Where talented people made a great movie with sci fi and action?
Iron Man 1's world-building consisted of actually having the generic government agents refer to their organization as SHIELD (well, technically I think they didn't) rather than DOD, NSA, FBI, etc., and introducing Nick Fury after the credits.
Iron Man 1 only introduced the 10 Rings as a stereotypical terrorist organization indistinguishable from the villains in True Lies. Their actual goals and value were left vague at best, and their leader was a forgettable mook.
Iron Man 1 introduced Obadiah Stane, whose characterization was 'greedy and deceptive'. That was it. He wasn't even that deceptive; Tony was just really naive. He dies.
Iron Man 1 introduced Tony's brief savior/mentor (whose name I'd have to look up, TBH). He dies faster than Obiwan Kenobi.
Iron Man 1 introduced James Rhodes, the responsible, practical black man exasperated by the antics of his eccentric white bestie.
Iron Man 1 introduced Pepper Potts, the hyper competent woman stuck working in the shadow of an egomaniac, but effectively runn8ng his business while also dealing with an inappropriate amount of his personal life. But it's okay because she falls in love with him.
Iron Man 1 inytroduced Happy Hogan. He's the director.
Most importantly, Iron Man 1 introduced Tony Stark. It did that with a ton of tropes that, while faithful to the character, are still pretty shallow. His character is dynamic, but he's the only dynamic character in the movie, and his characterization is stillbmoreorless left unexamined until Iron Man 2 starts to dive into his history with his father, his alcoholism, and the start of his PTSD - all of which is kind of touched on too lightly because it was genuinely too much to tackle in a movie that has Iron Man, Warmachine, Black Widow, (the arguably over-developed) Whiplash, Pepper and Happy, Nick Fury, and Justin Hammer packed into it.