Let’s just take for comparison, the Spiderverse series. I do admit that the graphics and artwork were pretty good. Maybe if I was a kid, I would’ve enjoyed it.

But anything from Marvel (or DC, any other large corpo-studio) feels like something that has been overused, that it isn’t original. It’s like Wattpad going mainstream - I would rather listen to a terrible story by the original author than a good adaptation, because every adaption does the job of not explaining contexts, and leaves for the consumers to go back to the original source, leading to more disappointment.

There’s cringe pop-references and lazy, overused sci-fi troupes like time travel, parallel universe, gene mutation, scientist explaining the “fake science” about worm holes, etc - all of which makes the movie so mushy. When I watch a movie, I don’t want to engage in any core research. I want that chapter to close when I finish watching it. Like for example, just look at Interstellar. This movie just takes ten minutes to explain most of the science stuff, and the rest is left to visual perception about how the laws of physics are bent in this unique environment. And the rest is left for me to pursue the subject later in my own personal convenience.

Sure, Howl’s Moving Castle by Studio Ghibli does not respect the original novel by Diana Jones faithfully, but that movie was simply magical, and made me so engrossed in reading the original novel. I had butterflies in my tummy when I saw the air-walking scene involving Howl and Sophie, when Calcifer turns the house in a fast-moving vehicle, and when Howl makes his first contract with Calcifer, because they were so damn good. I know enough, and if I need to, I can go into detail about stuff I want to understand more. Like for example, the birthplace of Howl, how he ended up in the parallel world where Ingary exists, etc.

There’s moving trees, there’s breeze, and when I see the movie, I feel like as if I can sense fresh air going inside my lungs, with some hints of saline, which is how sea breezes smell, that I can perceive the petrichor when it rains, and the strong-yet-hypnotic scent of a witchs’ brew and concoctions.

Just making this rant because I’m annoyed with pop-culture fanboys who rely on trend as a metrics to judge other’s taste, and that I want a safe-space to discuss about good artists and story tellers.

Personally, I feel like comics or similar media of any form (mangha, manhwa, light novel, etc) sucks as a form of story-telling, perhaps it is because they’re too accessible to the point that there’s cost-cutting, then there’s the dreaded fan service, which is always very sexual and objectifies the character of interest (which is something I hate so much). I equate it to fast media, something that is hyper-capitalist and obsessed with profit - stick to a trend, mass-produce it, and make money for investors.

Compared to something that is constrained to having no form of visual or auditory sensations and relies on imaginative thinking and careful writing - which is where novelists excel at, or when there’s no such restrictions, there’s a burden of showing the best art, the best world-building, and the reduction of complexity, which good artists and story tellers do so damn well.