What if Thanos Snapped The Avengers back to the 90s?
Thanos' snap was devastating, but be glad you don't live in a world where the Avengers was made in the 1990s.
I was a massive fan of Avengers: Endgame because of its way of recontextualizing every movie that came before it. It was incredible to reopen those parts of our imaginations and to dig in further with what would have happened if Marvel was a huge success and cast these movies in the '90s. Thankfully, there's an excellent fan-edit by What's the Mashup that did most of the heavy lifting for us.
Enjoy!
I think the major difference between our Avengers and the fantasy one is that in the 1990's you'd need movie stars to get something like this off the ground. Nowadays, these characters are the actual stars along with the titles. The cast of modern Avengers are famous, but because they were in these Marvel movies. I mean, Chris Evans was the Human Torch for two movies and nobody even remembers that anymore. He's defined by Captain America.
The studio system and star system has definitely changed. Aside from the voiceovers from trailers and the bad graphics that defined many '90s films, it was the last era of movie stars.
As we shifted to a tentpole-driven market, now the products take the limelight away from the people. You're greenlighting material. Attachments matter, because you need a familiar face to click on when you're scrolling Netflix, but stars and star power matter less. Imagine how much you'd have to pay those '90's actors to be in the movie.
Don't get me wrong, our Avengers are rich, but back in the star era all those faces broadcast in the fan trailer commanded $20-25 million per film.
Still, it's fun to think about what might have been, even if we're pretty excited about where we are now.
What's next? Learn the philosophy behind The Avengers!
The Avengers are supposed to be the best of us, but do they reflect the complex morality of humankind? Earth's mightiest heroes were put together by Nick Fury to protect us from attacks that the Earth's traditional forces could not anticipate. And I'm not talking about the 1.2 billion dollars it made at the box office. Modern comic films were split when DC went gritty, and Marvel stayed hopeful. That's panned out in Marvel's favor at the box office, but it's also led to a lot of people calling these movies soft.
I don't agree with that. So click the link to explore the morals within The Avengers!
