Black Panther: "Politically Astute and Socially Relevant"
would be nice for the MCU to finally have a film get nominated and win a major Hollywood award.
No Marvel film will ever receive an award for anything that isn't visual-effects related.
Not unless they are willing to change things up a bit in their scripting or the look/style of individual movies. The Dark Knight saw Heath Ledger win a posthumous award for his performance in it although one could argue that his death may have helped in the win then if he was still living and was nominated.
I still haven't seen a couple of the films nominated for Best Picture that year (Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk) but, in my opinion, The Dark Knight was the best movie of 2008. The only other films I would list as being able to challenge it are Gran Torino and Wall-E. I was reviewing a list of films that came out in 2008 on Wikipedia and what a weak year for movies. Yeah, there are some other good films in it but the majority of movies that year? Woof. However, then I saw that Quantum of Solace was released that year which meant Hollywood was still suffering through the Writer's Guild Strike that had occurred earlier which may account for such a large slate of forgettable and rough films.
The fact The Dark Knight didn't get a Best Picture nomination along with the very weak 5 pictures that were nominated led to the Academy making changes to the nomination process to allow up to 10 pictures to be nominated. This was done in the hopes of including more mainstream hits and keep the awards from looking to stodgy and out-of-touch. In a way, this has helped as it has seen more sci-fi fare and even animated movies get nominated. But aside from the very rare case of Mad Max: Fury Road being nominated last year, blockbuster big-budget fare is still shut out from even getting a nomination. Unless it does something really innovative technologically (Avatar, Gravity) the focus is still on movies that have "social relevance" like 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club or Spotlight. While those films may not always win despite their subject matter, compared to a movie where things go whiz and bang and large scale destruction occurs with a costumed here beating up a costumed villain and the day is saved, the former type of movie is always going to get a nod over the latter for appearing to be deeper and more serious.
The thing I still remember most from the Academy Awards for 2008 movies was Hugh Jackman singing up The Dark Knight's lack of a nomination asking "Since when is a billion dollars unsophisticated?". A few years ago, Birdman won Best Picture and if you want to know why a comic book movie hasn't been nominated it provides your answer as it was a sort of the Oscars manifesto that sure comic book movies are a big business and hugely popular but they are not respected by the profession's peers. They aren't a serious piece of art. If The Dark Knight couldn't crack it in 2008, then I don't think anything will unless it can equal or somehow surpass that film and nothing Marvel has done has ever reached that.
That doesn't mean that Marvel isn't entertaining or their films are crap. 2008 saw the release of Iron Man and it is also one of the few good movies released that year. But it doesn't compare to The Dark Knight, Gran Torino or Wall-E in my mind. However, I also don't think Marvel movies have changed that much since Iron Man. It set a tone that all the Marvel movies since have basically followed. Even when they try to bring up an issue or ask big questions, the treatment of such things is either just to serve as a basic character motivator or to skim the surface of the issue but not dive in deep. The focus is to keep the hero's charm up, give them a mission, have a bit early success, have a set back when facing the villain proper and then have them succeed over the villain at the end with a possible death (fake or real) thrown in to give it all some gravitas. It's a successful formula and it keeps working for the most part but it keeps the films safe. Marvel talks about taking risks with trying out properties like Guardians of the Galaxy or Dr. Strange but because they follow this similar pattern, there actually isn't that much risk in them. They're a known quantity before you even see the films. You know exactly the kind of experience you are going to get with them just from the Marvel name.
So, no, I have no expectations that Black Panther is somehow going to be a socially relevant film that allows Marvel to crack into an Oscar Best Picture nominee. Frankly, I don't think Marvel really cares if they get a nomination either. They just want to make sure they keep raking in a lot of money and dominating the box office by putting out the same kind of superhero experience they've been putting out for 8 years now. Frankly, when something is changed up, like The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, it gets a huge backlash from the fans so Marvel retcons it to keep the masses happy and that means less risk-taking allowed on the part of script writers or directors with these properties.
Topic: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE!! [OT] for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Movies & TV) (Read 1163729 times)
