The Thunderbolts' Trailer Asks, 'What's the Point?' | The Backdrop
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The Thunderbolts' Trailer Asks, 'What's the Point?' | The Backdrop (YouTube)
Comments (6)
Probably the saddest, least surprising revelation I just got from watching this is not that there was a TV series spinoff of a silly 1980s movie about a killer doll, but that there's a third season of it.
To be fair, it's fairly decent. It helps that it's all from the same guy who created Chucky all those years ago.
I do wonder about the things we live through, especially today. I’m not sure a spy thriller has the same pull now that bombs have been detonated from normal electronic devices. Virus/zombie movies are a bust, we did the pandemic and I just worked from next to my bedroom instead of going into the office, I’m actually nostalgic for it. Political dramas are just reality now, even the odd attempted coup. It’s hard for superheroes especially to to exist in the context where the once fantastical has become oddly mundane without pushing it to become “silly” but so audiences want “realistic” Gods who have to work through their daily lives, instead of just an extraordinary day.
As much as it feels like the franchise is in a midlife crisis, I can't help but look for the themes running through most scripts as something coming from the mental state of the writers/authors. Just like there's an abundance of daddy issues in movies (which was juxtaposed with mommy issues over the last decade), feeling bad about feeling aimless does sound like something you'd encounter in today's therapy sessions. There's a bit of imposter syndrome, there's a lot of future anxiety. If you combine that with a belief that audiences respond well to this feeling since they mostly feel it as well, you've created a vehicle that the characters have to be used in, no matter what else you could do. There's also no real working through pain for the franchise, since that would not only make the characters and you feel better, it would make you want to do something else than relive the same feelings, the same lessons, the same pain. I guess shows like Loki and Hawkeye reached an "okay I guess we can end this now" point, and just like with Wolverine/Logan, you'll always find a way to go another round on the carousel.
MCU Thunderbolts emits such weird vibes to me. Like, the conceit of the Thunderbolts generally in the comics is very reliant on them being existing recurring villains, which the MCU doesn't really have, so they have instead filled the roster with Some Guys™. Where are they going with this, who is this for?
Hoenstly, I look at the roster and I think there's interesting potential there. These are all effectively failed Captains America. You're putting them on a team together to do dirty work. It's basically Seal Team 616. You could do something there with the contrast between American self-image and American foreign policy. (Very much in line with Gunn's "The Suicide Squad", for example.) But I can't see the franchise pulling at that thread.