Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2014 May 16

= May 16 =

Avengers and X-Men films
If I understood things correctly, many years ago Marvel Comics could not make movies and sold the film licences of the X-Men (their most successful comics by then) to Fox. And so, Fox made the X-Men (film series). At some later point Marvel decided to make films themselves, and used the Avengers, the most important characters whose film rights had not been sold. This began the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, despite their shared origin (both of them are adaption of characters from Marvel Comics, who have a shared universe in comics), in films they are two different and independent franchises. They may have continuity inside themselves (Wolverine and Iron Man are the same character in either their solo films or the group films), but can not interact: there won't be a live-action Hulk vs. Wolverine film in the near future, mutants do not exist in the cinematic universe, and SHIELD does not exist in the X-Men films.

Question 1: What would happen with the X-Men films already made by Fox if the rights return to Marvel at some point? Can Marvel take it as if the X-Men film universe was a part of their cinematic universe "all along", and include references and flashbacks to them in their other movies; or would they have to begin their own X-Men film franchise from scratch? Question 2: What if the X-Men series creates some new character that becomes popular within fans? Can Marvel Comics add it to their regular comic books, as it have happened with Agent Coulson? Cambalachero (talk) 01:28, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * As long as they have the legal rights, they can do whatever they think will sell. Heck, since we had Alien Versus Predator, anything is possible. StuRat (talk) 03:14, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * 1) will depend on the terms of the agreement (or a future agreement once the rights lapse), though since the x-men timeline would take some considerable tweaking to make it consistent with the Avengers timeline, I'd be surprised if they didn't reboot continuity. There may also be some elements of the X men movie plots which fox generated independently, and the rights for those elements would have to be negotiated too (since they would be held by Fox by default, rather than Marvel).
 * For 2), if the x-men movie series makes a new character, then that character would (unless there is some other term in the contract) be the property of Fox, since it was their creation, even though it was within the marvel universe. If the x-men comic series creates a new character, I'm not so sure. I know that Marvel are being allowed to use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch because a) they aren't going to mention that they are mutants, mention Magneto, or mention the X-men, and b) the characters have been associated in roughly equal measure with the Avengers and the X men over their run in the comics.  I would presume the same conditions would apply to importing any new X-men comic character into the Marvel cinematic universe. source for some of this.  If someone wants to dig deeper, according to the comments of that blog, there is some Fox v Marvel litigation on Westlaw which goes into the contracts. I don't have time for that, since I only have access from work (where I should really be actually working!).MChesterMC (talk) 08:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The answer to both those questions is rather disappointing: we don't know because it depends on the terms of the current deal(s) and/or how much money someone wants to spend to change those deals. Consider this: back in the 70s, the estate of Robert E. Howard licensed the Conan the Barbarian concept to Marvel. Marvel kept the license for several years and it was profitable for both groups. When the deal finally finished, Marvel lost all their rights to pretty much everything Conan related; they can't even reprint the comics they themselves published; the company (Dark Horse Comics) that bought the rights can do so. Even characters that were largely creations of Marvel, such as Red Sonja (created as a minor character by Howard; basically everything about the current character comes from Thomas and Smith) are now being used by Dark Horse. Would it be the same for mutants created by Fox or Spidey elements created by Sony? Obviously it could, but it would all come down to fine print we're not privy to. Matt Deres (talk) 23:50, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Humanity, Fuck Yeah
I came across this ...genre, I suppose, of fiction while brownsing the cesspool of the Internet the other day. As far as I understand it, it basically consists of short personal stories, told by aliens, of their encounters with humans and our bizarre behaviours, rituals, or activities. Usually in the context of the humans being in some way incredibly badass and winning out despite everyone's assumption that we were backwards swamp monkeys.

Are there full works of fiction which have this style? Perhaps not necessarily quite so lurid, and it doesn't need to be quite so "fuck yeah", but the vibe of a fiction told by the aliens who are in some way surprised by human behaviour is highly engaging to me. 31.48.168.137 (talk) 20:32, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This image is an example. http://puu.sh/8OUud/b957342485.png 31.48.168.137 (talk) 20:37, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, this genre as an organized and self-aware genre is still a fledgling one, with few (if any) professionally published works to my knowledge. Not many long works from the aliens' perspective(s), but the John Carter series is sort of archetypal. The Road Not Taken (short story) is also inspirational for the genre, and came up in the original 4chan discussion where the genre was born, IIRC. The author of that work, Harry Turtledove, also wrote the Worldwar series with a similar theme. The High Crusade fits right in the genre. The original Doom novels also exhibited this in the later two books: humanity is the only species that can truly die, but we're also the (second) fastest evolving, and have this confusing controlled mania called "faith" (whether its in religions, lovers, principles) that makes us absolute hell to deal with. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * There were several episodes of Star Trek where aliens observed us, and in the end decided humanity was worth saving. One was Arena (Star Trek: The Original Series) episode where Kirk fought the Gorn.  Interestingly, this was based on an earlier written story by the same name (Arena (short story)), with a similar evil (but spherical and tentacled) alien.  StuRat (talk) 01:34, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * "Humanity, Fuck Yeah" would have the aliens observe us, and either be too scared to try to not save/spare us, or get wiped out by us for daring to think they have a right to an opinion about our existence. Stuff like:
 * "The earth-mans became apex predators simply by walking! Commander, we must destroy them before they develop more advanced weapons," and then after five thousand years of traveling on a sleeper ship (resulting in a 10000 year round trip), the aliens arrive to find us testing atomic weapons.  "Impossible!  They weren't even sure if they were going to ignite their atmosphere, and yet they detonated fission bombs on their own planet!"  At this point, they either flee, surrender, offer to be "allies," or get wiped out by us for trying to interfere.
 * (Original example). Ian.thomson (talk) 15:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Isn't that pretty much every case of humans encountering hostile aliens in fiction ? The humans always win somehow, although winning due to microbes, as in War of the Worlds, might not count. StuRat (talk) 16:23, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sort of, only detailed to take deliberate human actions that are either mundane or criticized, and turn them into the scariest thing the aliens have ever seen. War of the Worlds starts to approach it with "they're ridden with biological weapons!"  But it's still implied that it's just a natural (and potentially mutual) lack of resistance, rather than humanity being unusually disease ridden. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It's not an example of the style, but you might get a little background reading if you check out the final section of Gulliver's Travels, the section of the Houyhnhnms; the depiction of the story's hominids is rather close to the humans in your genre, and reading our article just now, I was surprised because I never before realised that the hominids weren't humans. Nyttend (talk) 02:20, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * If the Yahoos weren't a criticism of human behavior, it'd work. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If by "full work" you mean a novel, nothing comes to mind. But there are certainly some short stories where humans are seen from an alien's viewpoint. I can think of two offhand, both involving mechanical life-forms.  In "Life on Earth (by a Martian)", a humor piece by Paul A. Weiss (I don't know if that's this guy or someone else of the same name) written sometime before 1973, the aliens decide that the dominant life-form on Earth is the car.  And in "They're Made Out of Meat" (1991) by Terry Bisson, aliens are astonished and disgusted that humans aren't mechanical life-forms like them. --50.100.193.30 (talk) 06:37, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Poul Anderson probably wrote more than one novel about aliens' view of humans. Isn't The Man Who Counts, for example, written partly from the winged folk's viewpoint? —Tamfang (talk) 06:45, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Friend reminded me of Gunbuster and Gurren Lagann, two series where the alien invasions are mostly justified pre-emptive self-defense. Though, like other stuff, it isn't necessarily from the aliens' point of view. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The general theme of humans having some indefinable quality that enabled them, despite any apparent disadvantages, to defeat aliens was favoured by the influential SF magazine editor John W. Campbell, Jr. Consequently many writers of his period, whether or not they agreed with it but anyway wanting to sell stories to his magazines, would use it. I remember reading that Isaac Asimov deliberately made the universe of most of his novels and stories, including his famous Foundation series, lack aliens because he disagreed with Campbell's bias but didn't want to argue about it. (The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195) 2.218.13.119 (talk) 23:44, 17 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for all the help, everyone! When i've got some spare time I'll come back to this discussion and probablky buy some things mentioned here. One thing I shall mention - I probably put too much emphasis on the "humans are awesome/crazy" and not enough emphasis on "story written from alien's perspective", but certainly a lot of you figured it out and even those who didn't (as much) will no doubt still provide me with interesting leads.


 * Thanks again! 31.48.168.137 (talk) 02:59, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You'll probably also like Sentinel by Fredric Brown. www.scoop.it/t/melting-point/p/1005835182/2012/01/19/the-sentinel-by-fredric-brown-understand-the-effects-of-a-partial-point-of-view is a very short story.--193.240.28.74 (talk) 11:55, 22 May 2014 (UTC)