Current Events > Bad creative ideas that realistically might've looked good on paper?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What are some of the traps of creative that you've encountered? To the intended audience, it's an idea that stinks from a mile away. To the creative team, it seems like a surefire way to win people over.

I can think of two off the top of my head. Add your own if any examples come to mind.

Age of Ultron (2015)
Black Widow thinks nerds are sexy

If you like comics, you're a nerd. So you'd probably like to have a sexy badass with fake red hair snub the rich guy and his jock friends to tell you how sexy you are, right? Wrong. The audience doesn't want to identify with Hulk. They identify primarily with Iron Man or Captain America. This was a big swing-and-a-miss. The failure of the audience to identify with the designated geek character made the self-insert nature of the budding Hulk-Black Widow romance all the more apparent.

WWE, Royal Rumble (2015)
The Rock says nepotism makes you a winner

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is a mega star. No doubt about it. People who dislike wrestling and who dislike his movies still like The Rock as a persona. And anything he does in wrestling is instantly golden because he's now larger than wrestling itself. So when he came back to aid family member Roman Reigns in winning the Royal Rumble and raise his hand in victory, it seemed like it'd help Roman gain the audience's approval. Spoilers: It did not. The fans knew who they wanted to win that night and nobody, not even wrestling's Great One, could've changed their minds.

Female characters don't just exist to give the audience someone to fantasize about fucking, genius.
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Don't mind me. I'm just looking for the post where somebody said that.

Skye Reynolds posted...

Don't mind me. I'm just looking for the post where somebody said that.

Your argument is that their relationship doesn't work because "nerds" want to identify with Iron Man or Cap, so she should be with them.

And Bruce Banner *is* a sexy nerd.
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Bruce Banner doesnt have enough personality to really be a nerd even. He has to share his character's screen time with an entirely different persona and he has no movies of his own to give him enough insight into who he is or make us care all that much about him. Thor 3 was the most we've really gotten. Beyond that it's just that Ruffalo is likeable.
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ASithLord7 posted...

Your argument is that their relationship doesn't work because "nerds" want to identify with Iron Man or Cap, so she should be with them.

The "nerd" part was written from the perspective of the studio; specifically Joss Whedon.

The scene fails because audiences don't want to be pandered to as a nerd or geek demographic, they don't want to see Joss Whedon's romantic fanfiction, and because they don't want to see a strong character like Black Widow reduced to a shameless "love interest." That's not saying she could never experience romance, but the dialogue and the choice of partner were out of character for her. It sold her short in ways that made her seem more like a plot device -- Hulk's potential love interest -- and less like her usual self.

Skye Reynolds posted...

The Rock says nepotism makes you a winner

Do you even know who the Rock's dad and grandad are?

X-Men: The Animated Series (1992)
You're Jubilee

We're going to have the narrative follow a supporting character. This character is young, they're trendy, and they're just discovering their mutant powers. This character is an obvious stand-in for the target demographic. Watching as a child or a teen, you're supposed to feel like you could wake up tomorrow and discover you have special powers.

...except nobody wants to be the character who shoots sparklers for their power.

While it's worth noting that she's a better character in the comics than she is in the cartoon, this particular series has her as teen in a yellow trench coat who shoots fireworks at enemies and quotes hip dialogue like, "Does a mall babe eat chili dogs?" It's one thing to push the audience in the direction of identifying with a newcomer rather than an established hero who scores the big victories. It's enough to tell them they're the weakest team member and they have shitty powers. Especially when you have characters on the team like Wolverine, Rogue, and Storm.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Skye Reynolds posted...

The Rock says nepotism makes you a winner

Do you even know who the Rock's dad and grandad are?

Funny thing, The Rock wasn't that popular when Rocky Johnson came out and rescued his son, "The Blue Chipper" Rocky Maivia, from the Iron Sheik at WrestleMania 14.

That isnt what even happened at all ya goober.

She said he was a total dork, and that chicks dig that. And a lot of chicks do, it's about being funny and kind of silly at times. And that wasn't why she mainly liked him. Your post is just nonsense.
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Fallout 76
Skyrim

Sony mandating Venom to appear in Spider-Man 3.
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Trickle down economics
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