JimB said:
I'm not aware of a serious effort to ever do so. I mean, there was that Christ-awful TV pilot that never even aired (and rightly so, have you seen that ************?) that, if the rumors are to be believed, was altered almost endlessly by executive meddling to try to make the show and the character be something it's not; specifically, Ally McBeal.
And no true scotsman puts sugar in his porridge. I mean, honestly. If they didn't do a good job there, what makes you think they'll do a "serious" job elsewhere? And don't blame me for bringing up the issue of quality again. You brought it up again/
By comparison, how much did Marvel market Iron Man as a character and a property before making a movie of him?
Do we include the multiple animated shows he was in? If so, do we count Wonder Woman's appearances? Only the ones they star in?
How many more people in the world knew his name than knew Wonder Woman's? I'd guess fewer did, yet the movie succeeded because Marvel was willing to stand back and let an okay screenwriter, an okay director, and an okay actor (none of them better than okay) put a ninety-minute love letter to Tony Stark on the screen and trust that the enthusiasm would be infectious. And it was.
I'd argue that Downey is what sold it. He even sold that second movie where nothing happens. That's the thing, though. You can't argue that way. Marvel has put immense efforts into their film brand and DC hasn't. Saying "well, if only...." is nice, but if wishes were horses, I'd be up to my eyeballs in ponies. At the same time, Iron Man is a really simple concept. He's a douchier Bruce Wayne. But you've drifted back to the point you dismissed earlier. Marvel is willing to take B and C-Listers and stand behind them. Iron Man, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy. DC won't. So it's kind of pointless to argue that a good movie could come of it if only they made a good movie.
The reality is, they won't. But again, I think that's neither here nor there to the point at hand:
The successful heroes are all more easily marketed than Wonder Woman.
Zachary Amaranth said:
If you can't prove it to me (someone who would like to see a Wonder Woman movie), what hope do you think there is for those people you just accused of poor taste?
There was never any hope you would agree with me.
Oh, wait, you were talking about me? Despite the fact that I've spoken to the contrary in terms of what I want? So not only did you insult me, but you didn't have the courtesy to insult me on actual grounds. No wonder you don't expect me to agree with you.
That has nothing to do with you, though, but rather an immutable law of reality that if someone disagrees with you on the internet, then he will always disagree with you and nothing will ever change that. They could make a successful Wonder Woman movie tomorrow that outgrosses the Avengers and you still wouldn't agree with me; DC could sell the rights to Wonder Woman to Larry Flynt tomorrow and I still wouldn't agree with you. It's just the way it works.
Would a successful Wonder Woman tomorrow mean she was easy to market? I don't follow your reasoning here.
But more realistically, you're free to believe people don't change their opinions on the internet. I disagree. Then again, I used to be a pro-life Catholic in favour od the death penalty and now I'm a baby-eating[footnote]facetiously, of course[/footnote] atheist with many more reservations. Or maybe you only mean on comic books. Well, I can't think of the last person who changed my mind there, so maybe you have a point.
But then, all it would take to convince me that they could make a good Wonder Woman movie was for a good Wonder Woman movie to be made, so that can't be it. I mean, I'm operating on a level of skepticism based on a series of poorly performing and poorly made movies. and the former is only an issue because I believe they will continue to not bother as long as they don't think they will make money off of it. A self-fulflling prrophecy, if you will.
In any event, the criteria to change my mind will vary based on the point in question. I don't know. Maybe your mind is completely unchangeable, but mine is not. I accept all things tentatively and contingent upon the evidence I have available.
But speaking of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a good way to make sure I don't change my mind is to go from referring to hypothetical people in terms of their plebian tastes to me specifically.
I can't think of any other translation to film where the ability to reduce a character to three words is a good thing, and to my anecdotal experience, the more you can reduce characters thus, the less people enjoy those characters.
Tony and Bruce can be immensely complex. Weren't you the one who mentioned character studies on Batman? Just because you can summarise them on a stamp doesn't mean they can't be deep. Similarly, just because you can't pare something down to bullet points doesn't mean the complexity is worth anything.
However, it's not intellectual dishonesty. It's just human nature. We like simple, snappy, and preferably binary. Ask Al Gore how the "invented the internet" thing went for him.
I mean, who enjoyed any of the characters in the Star Wars prequels?
You mean the ones who were bogged down by politics and shoehorned nuance? Where they tried to make the Dark Sider all "complicated?"
I don't see how this helps your point. Lucas took a very simple concept of cowboys and samurai and tried to make it more complicated and tried to make the characters more complicated and that's part of what made them suck. And as whiny and annoying as Luke Skywalker can be, he ended up coming off as deeper than Anakin for all the efforts. Granted, this is a sub-optimal example, since we're comparing the depth of puddles, but still.
I mean, who went into Star Wars thinking "God, I hope they capture the nuanced dynamics of the Galactic Senate?" Hell, did people go into the Nolan Batman films thinking "Oh goody, I can't wait to see a love letter to the Bush Administration?"
Summary doesn't dictate the entirety of the story.
Who went into Thor expecting to dislike it but came out pleasantly surprised the characters were nuanced?
Who cares? I feel like you're drifting off into irrelevance here.
Who, if it was marketed in three words, would want to see a character who could accurately be described as "Hercules with tits?"*
Yeah, if that's the best you can come up with, either the character probably isn't worth it or you're not the person to be pitching it. But then, you're probably also not the person to be arguing that it can be marketed. Even Xena managed to tag the character with "warrior princess." Though I wouldn't try that with Wonder Woman, because it's already been done.
Maybe "Like Xena, but...." to borrow from Zero Punctuation.