How Not to Make an Audience Care

I recently watched Thor: Ragnarok, the latest in Marvel's seemingly endless torrent of superhero comedy/action movies. While I generally enjoyed it (at least compared to other films in the same genre), I found myself rather bored during many of the scenes which were intended to be the most dramatic. The movie puts an enormous amount of effort into epic music, gratuitous explosions, and intricately animated fight sequences, but many of its action scenes just felt like something to be waited through until something more interesting happened. In fact, I think you could cut out a solid 10 minutes of absurdly acrobatic duels and massacring of minions and the film would't actually lose anything of value.

Now, I should say that I am not bored by all action scenes. For example, Mad Max: Fury Road managed managed to keep me on the edge of my seat, and that movie is probably around 50% giant explosions. So what exactly did Thor: Ragnarok lack? After a fair amount of thought, I have come to the following conclusion: the action scenes weren't engaging because I didn't actually care what happened. For all of its special effects, the movie wasn't able to get me invested in what was going on. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters, the plot wasn't atypical enough to intrigue me, and there wasn't really any dramatic tension. After all, it's not like Marvel is going to allow one of their protagonists to lose in the end, much less actually die. 

This flaw in Thor: Ragnarok is made even worse by the fact that it is entirely possible to have extremely dramatic action scenes with the simplest of visuals, as long as the viewer actually cares. The webcomic Order of the Stick is a perfect example of this. It is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons/fantasy adventure drawn entirely in stick figures which still manages to be more exciting than any Marvel movie I've seen. This is due to a myriad of factors, foremost among them a genuinely well-written and unconventional plot, nuanced characters, and a real willingness on the part of the author to have the heroes lose, often quite badly. The plotline which runs from strip 623 to 663 is a particularly strong example of how action can be dramatic without extravagant special effects.

In the end, the viewer's enjoyment of action in any entertainment media is not dependent on the visuals with which it is portrayed, but rather on the interest they have in the characters and the situation. While it is unfortunately extremely unlikely that this will actually occur, I do hope that eventually Marvel realizes that story and characters are more important to the drama of a scene than grand spectacles of computer-generated destruction.