Death of a Superhero

Just after Christmas I went to the cinema to see the new Star Wars. I won't spend too long dwelling on this, except to say it was awesome and very much worth the 33 year wait since Return of the Jedi. What I did notice, however, were the trailers.

I love trailers. While others might moan about having to wait half an hour from arriving at the cinema to actually starting the film you paid to see, I regard trailers as very much part of the cinema experience, along with a tub of ice cream and a bag of revels. I would never regard any of these things as necessary if I were watching the movie on a widescreen DVD at home, but put me in a multiplex and I regard them as being as vital as breathing.

Anyway, being as it's the start of Oscar season, I was expecting the usual run of historical dramas, psychological thrillers, and literary worthiness. Instead, I got trailers for Deadpool, Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman. Later in the year, we'll be seeing Gambit, Doctor Strange, X Men: Apocalypse, and Captain America: Civil War. Apart from a preponderance of colons (even Bats and Supes get one in the full title :Dawn of Justice) this indicates to me one thing.

Superhero films are dead.

Not this year. Not by any stretch of the imagination. This year we are seeing more superhero movies than ever before. And therein lies the problem. I like superhero movies. I liked them back in the 70s when they largely consisted of embarrassing translations of comic book spandex to baggy pyjamas (Spiderman I'm looking at you). I like them even more now that they've been combined with the dry one liners of 80's Die Hard and the CGI action lens flare of modern sci fi. But even I am now starting to wish that somebody could make something different. Something maybe not based on a comic book. And if I'm thinking it, then you can bet others are saying it, and slowly but surely we'll start to see a drop in box office takings, at which point the big studios will run from the genre like goths from a Twilight screening.

So what will replace the genre. In the 50s we had Westerns, in the 60s spy movies. The 70s brought us thoughtful sci-fi, the 80's big concept action movies. By the time we got to the 90's we'd kind of run out of new genres, so had to rely on post-modern rehashes of previous genres by Tarantino. In the new millenium, however, a new wave of ideas and auteurs were on hand, so we were able to relish in post-modern rehashes of previous genres by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

One thing is clear: each of these genres matched the spirit of the time. Westerns:, post-war pioneering spirit and a desire to rebuild the world; spy movies: the cold war; sci-fi: the moon landings; action movies: 80's aspiration and ambition; post-modernism: our own cynicism at where the greed and aspiration of the 80's got us.

So what do we have now? What will inspire the next genre of movies?

Well, first of all, I think we could all do with a bit of escapism. Things are pretty bleak in the world right now, so a refreshing film about something blatantly not true would work wonders at banishing our troubles for a quick hour and a half. A bit like the sci-fi of the 70s.

That's not enough though. We're facing a lot of grey and grey morality in today's political landscape. It's hard to know who the bad guys really are. For true escapism, we need a bit of good old black and white morality, like they had in the 50's and 60's. Films where you can tell who to root for by the colour of their hat.

And what else? Well, maybe a bit of 80's glamour. Something aspirational, something we wish we could do, even if its outlandishly unlikely that it could ever really happen.

And finally, a bit of comedy. Some glib one liners. Some fun, larger than life characters trying to one up each other, with maybe a bit of post-modern self reference to make us all feel clever.

So let's put it all together and see what we end up with. Larger than life heroes, living a life we can only dream of, possibly powered by some hand wavy sci-fi explanation, and fighting very clearly defined villains who we can recognise by the colour of their hats.

Oh crap...it's super hero films, isn't it.

Maybe this thing is going to run a little longer than I thought.