Civil War was funny, and mostly enjoyable, but to me it felt like a mess of a plot, with very little stakes or repurcussions. A bunch of superheroes smashed together on screen and cracking jokes while fighting can be fun, but that movie was forgettable to me.

Personally, I found both Man of Steel and BvS to be better movies. I know most critics will strongly disagree with that, but nobody can tell me that they can throw all three movies into a spreadsheet and give me hard numbers proving that Civil War is the better movie. That's just not how it works.

Yeah. I was enjoying the debate, so in the interest of keeping it going, here is my 2 cents.

There are absolutely rules to telling a story. We have been telling stories for 9,000 years and we have tried and true methods.

You tell a story in chronological order and then one of the following story types: 1.Overcoming the Monster, 2.Rags to Riches, 3.The Quest, 4.Voyage and Return, 5.Rebirth, 6.Comedy and 7.Tragedy.

Based on the medium, novel, movie, comic book, etc. there are certain elements like color, tone, language that are used to convey ideas. Like dark being associated with evil like Darth Vader.

Now, what the great artists do, is they can bend or break a "rule" and it is the act of breaking the rule that becomes the element of interest.

For example Nolan seems to be obsessed with breaking the rules on telling stories in chronological order. Momento, Interstellar, Dunkirk are all experiments in manipulating Chronology to add different meaning to the story.

2001 seems to me to more it ages to be a story about technology and its relationship to civilization. We start with basic tools and we end with A.I. But that is all debatable.

As for Mulholland Drive, I got nothing because I dislike movies that are too far out in the weeds like that. But the Lynch movies generally hinge on symbolism and playing on our perceptions of the symbols.

Now to the DC movies, my biggest issue is Synder is obsessed with comic books as moder mythology and then we get hamfisted nonsense about rather or not Superman is a god or Jesus or a man or whatever and then we spend the whole movies trying to determine the answer. Further part of me wonders if the whole Martha debacle in BvS was to make the point that Jesus was a man with a Mom. and by Jesus I mean Superman. But part of what makes BvS such a mess is that Synder tries to break too many of the rules without being skilled enough to do it for a purpose.

This is also what plagues other DC movies. Compare Suicide Squad to the Wild Bunch. Both movies question what it means to be a hero, but one of them is a classic because it keeps other story rules intact so we can focus on that question, while Suicide Squad tries to meander around the question and tell a bunch of useless side stories and ultimately does not want to make the anti-heroes true anti-hero.

The one "good" D. C. Movie Wonder Woman is a very conventional movie and it works for it. And shocker of shocker it was enjoyable. This what Marvel has hit on. Conventional movies are generally more enjoyable because you can focus on perfecting each element and everything comes off polished.

Spielburg is a great director because he generally follows the rules and when it breaks them it is for a purpose and that purposes resonates because the rule being broken is clear. The red dress in Schiendler's List is a great example. Also in Jurassic Park, making the T-Rex attack the Raptors as a quasi hero at the end is a nice reminder that the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are not the Monsters of the movie, but rather unbrindle ambition of man is the monster. This element is brought back in Jurassic World with the T-Rex vs Fake-Rex, but in Jurassic World it felt hollow because it was tacked on to a bunch of other threads in the movie. Too many plot threads is bad.

What I think makes marvel better than DC is they are making movies that are easy to process, that are well made, and keep each movie to one "big idea". Guardians of the Galaxy spent two movies contemplating what constitutes a family. D.C. wants to throw in a bunch of big ideas and never explores them and when they do, they resolve in absurdity. Except for Wonder Woman.

Now, this entire debate about the rules generally occurs in criticism of art and not by the artists themselves. But that is not always true. The best sports analogy I can think of is Brett Farve vs Peyton Manning. Peyton knows the rules to being a successful QB, can tell you he rules, follows the rules and has lots of success. Brett Farve goes out and let's it rip. He breaks rules and conventions and has success. But coaches and commentators can break down both QBs and explain why each style works and if they can't they will break down their own conventions and the create new rules to explain it.

Same with story telling. Yes it is evolving. But that does not mean there are not rules.

Sorry for this. Too much Aggie Football tonight and bored riding back to Houston.