Why Do Marvel's Movies Look Kind of Ugly? (video essay) 

YES, I REALIZE I FORGOT THE INCREDIBLE HULK

Holy shit i never realized how gray it actually is. The sky is barely even blue in marvel movies, wtf

This is one of those things you don't notice until somebody points it out and then you're never able to unsee it again.

People are saying how this is a choice to make the movies more realistic, but the dark knight trilogy doesn't have this problem, even though it also aims for realism. Dull doesn't mean realistic

This is essentially my biggest problem with the MCU. Everything looks the same and the "same" is straight up bland. The content of the films themselves are hit or miss for me but even the hits suffer from this.

Even The Dark Knight Trilogy which had a gritty realistic tone had more colour and much better lighting than Avenger age of ultron for example

DC is too dark I literally can't see their movies

Dude... when you realize the behind the scenes footage has better color gradient than the movie

yeah, I laughed really hard when u said that civil war looked like an "empty parking lot." And yeah, all of marvels movies look too grey or light and there's very little saturation. great video, well narrated, excellent points made. and funny.

Dc is so dark that it gets pulled over by the police for no reason

Even Logan, the most human comic book movie in years was more vibrant than MCU movies.

Saw the title, frowned and went "What the hell - ugly? What is this...?!" Watched the video and... yeah, I completely agree. How have I not noticed that before? When I edit things, I always go for a more vibrant picture - or when I watch movies on my PC and use VLC player or such to view them, I often add saturation, contrast - tweak it to nice and vibrant. 3:48 aboud Civil War is an incredible difference and I now wish I could watch all of them with such correction.

I always told my sister that the MCU films looked “ashy” to me and she told me I was crazy BUT THIS CONFIRMS IT I KNEW IT HAD TO DO WITH COLOR GRADING

I find it amusing how he had to mention 70 times "how much he liked marvel movies" just so the fan boys wouldn't attack and there are still over 4000 dislikes...

I've seen people describe Marvel movies as "bright and colorful" and could never understand what they were talking about. When you said "muddy concrete" and "empty parking lot" it felt like someone had finally put my thoughts into words. You managed to explain why the set pieces in Doctor Strange look so tame compared to similar ones in Inception or The Matrix. It also helps explain why Iron Man 1 remains my favorite Marvel film - if nothing else, it's at least exciting to look at.

Couldn’t agree more. At first watching The Avengers on cinema, I thought the exhibitor forget to fine tuning the colors. My dull life is even more colorful than any digitally shot MCU movies

I don't understand how I only just stumbled onto this. As a person who works in the film industry and also edits his own photography, the color grading was something I always noticed as being lackluster in these films. I'm curious to see how you feel about the overall look of Infinity War now that it's been out. I feel like the look of that film as well as Black Panther really felt more polished than their precious works.

at first i was confused because i never saw anything wrong with the visuals, but then i saw the side-by-side part and it was a drastic change. now im never going to be able to see marvel movies the same again lol

Now I notice the grey overlook and I want them to be more vibrant

You exactly addressed my problem with Marvel films. The weird lack of saturation makes the movies feel empty and lifeless when they have the potential to feel and look vibrant and as intense as the story they are telling. You can still see it in some of Marvel's more recent movies like Thor Ragnarok, even though it's is one of the most colorful and beautifully shot MCU movies to date (in my opinion). DC's color grading feels less flat (especially in Wonder Woman) but the dark tones and SO MUCH BLUE (the Zack Snyder look) run the risk of going to the opposite extreme. Anyway great video on a great channel. Well done 👏👏👏

2 years on and by the looks of Captain Marvel it seems they still haven't figured out how to make scenes set in urban areas look decent.

People are saying that the film has to look grey in order to have a "realistic" look, but if you look at movies like The Dark Knight or the Dark Knight Rises 4K Blu-rays, it becomes quite apparent that a film can look realistic without having to have a low contrast color grade. GOTG2 and Ragnarok had some very nice grading and I think they handled their digital images well.

"The camera doesn't matter. But it's going to be better now that they're using a different camera." Kinda contradicting yourself there.

5 years later and we are still suffering from this…

I love how this is the one video bashing marvel but people are still bringing the hate to DC

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Homecoming are full of color. But this video was before those so.... yeah

So that's why they all look the same and you can tell a marvel movie just by the lighting

Let's be honest; Snyder's narration is debatable, but you can't deny that his cinematography, colour grading and visual styling is on another level. Watching a film is like reading a book. Watching a Snyder film is like watching a painting. Zack Snyder's Justice League is by far the most beautifully shot comic - book film. Seriously, every fucking shot is like a painting. Followed by BvS, Joker, Watchmen, TDK/TDKR and MoS.

1:30 - look in the bottom right of the screen 1:32 - color grading added a rock there?

100% agreed. Altough I have to say that for instance... in Winter Soldier that particular color grading worked well because the movie is more gritty and "realistic", not so pulpy, so in cases like that the washed out color grading is a go.

Color grading seriously became a problem. Since colors and lighting in most don't look believable anymore, cgi effects look more fake and the "wow factor" just goes away.

When I think about civil war the first thing that comes to my mind is the color grey

Thanos will bring color grading.

Does no one think this is on purpose? So the characters look more realistic or more connected to this world.

Now I know why I loved the cinematography of DC more than marvel.

In hindsight, Whedon can be blamed for lack of colorful visual style for the Marvel movies because his Avengers work feel so 90s-early 00s network TV style in terms of scene composition.

The biggest problem with the airport fight scene in Civil War was the fact that the location was a freaking airport!! One of the most boring locations you could have for a fight scene. Now don't get me wrong; an airport location can be presented well, even for an action scene, but in Civil War it just looked so boring. I think the location was a bigger issue than the color for that scene specifically.

Shoot now I'm gonna be all judgy of the colour grading now, thanks a lot video man! :(

the trailers for endgame look really nice, color grading wise.

The problem is when the audiences like the movie then possibly become newbie fans, an objective discussion become much harder to be accepted. Just like MCU fans.

My ONLY two problems with Marvel has been the music and the flat cinematography. The first Avengers looks like a TV show with an INSANE budget. Looks like Marvel have noticed are trying to fix both. Hiring Giacchino for the music in Doctor Strange and Spiderman and switching camera's seems like a step in right direction.

This problem is really, really obvious in Age of Ultron. That's by far the ugliest movie of the bunch.

At least it's not nearly as bad as David Yates' Harry Potter films. "From the fifth book onwards, the story of Harry Potter takes an increasingly darker turn. Therefore, we need to make the films LITERALLY DARK. So dark, you can't even make out the shape of the room on a sunny day." High school cinematography.

After Endgame perhaps the answer has been “oh we’re gonna time travel to the old movies so we had to make them look the same” this whole time.

Thor Ragnorak had amazing color saturation. It was very satisfying too watch.

multiverse of madness has some awesome coloring

Amazing Spiderman 2 colour grading is one of Marvel's best.

Hi, professional colorist here. Sorry to get a little pedantic but your black value argument is actually severely flawed. Specifically what you measured with the eye dropper was the legal black value (6.25%, or digital code 16 on an 8 bit scale) which is used in video files in the REC 709 color primaries intended for television and theater, as opposed to the full scale black value 0% which is used on computer screens. While I agree that they don't use a very strong contrast curve, I can tell you that the primary thing you're seeing wrt black points is a technical issue between improper standards conversions rather than a colorist's decision. I've seen moderate to severe issues with this not only in my own footage misbehaving between my own systems, but also between different quality renders on RU-vid, whether im streaming to my tv or not. Worse than that, sometimes the versions on iTunes or Netflix or Blu-ray are all different in how they're presented, depending on whether the right metadata flags are present in the stream or not. Yes, colorists can and do make decisions about black points, but when you're dealing with a studio like marvel there are other possible points of failure in the image distribution pipeline that the film goes through. Don't be so hasty to judge - you've just accidentally peaked into the messy world of video standards errors

I completely agree. Movies these days are so dull looking. I'm glad that films like Mad Max and Pacific Rim and Force Awakens are so much brighter, and with the success all those movies had, I'm sure other movies (that need it, cause like you said, serious stuff like Spotlight does not need super bright poppy colors) will make the change too. I've been a bit confused by the whole bland look for a while but didn't really know how to word it, so this video does it perfectly!

On a totally non-film related note, this has helped me improve the look of the kayaking videos I make. So thanks for that, Patrick.

After watching this video, I posted a similar video about color correcting the Marvel Movies on Reddit & I got Permanently Banned from the Marvel Studios Subreddit. Thanks for that idea, Patrick.

guardians 1&2, thor ragnarok, black panther and now infinity war all look colourful

I like the flat look, because it makes it more "real". Marvel has fantastical characters and (unlike DC) the movies tend to be very funny and tongue in cheek. So having the flat look I think helps ad realism to the otherwise less serious parts of the movie.

Yeah. I prefer the more vibrant image. It’s more exciting to look at. Feels more premium. The dull one makes everything look like it takes place on Tuesday. Lol

I personaly LOVE saturated colors, even if it does look a bit wrong, and I actually color graded civil war for my first time watching it, and I'm planing to increase saturation for (mostly) every movie I watch from now on

I think they really turned a corner with Homecoming, Ragnarok and the upcoming Black Panther

i always kind of assumed that they toned down the colours because having a more realistic colour scheme (as opposed to the overly saturated one in most comics, especially the old ones) was a countermeasure to superhero movies not being taken seriously. i feel like the superhero movie genre was only recently recognised as a respectable, *adult* genre, so the MCU is still on that dull palette because it makes cap's bright blue onesie look less silly; less "disney's hercules"... but idk

Say what you want about DC films but they at least have texture and a tone. It might not be pretty being that Snyder has an ugly aesthetic but at least its not flat like Marvel. Watching Dune recently reminded me how important color grading and cinematography is. Go and watch the whimsical 90s sci fi The Fifth Element to see what Marvel could do if it actually cared rather than mass producing the same superhero film again and again. Go look at the trailer for The Batman and see how interesting the tone and colors are in that, the dark but vibrant reds and blacks. So much more visually interesting than anything Marvel have ever done.

I think its just a matter of preferences. Tbh i kinda like the winter soldier colour back then. Doesn't try to be over cinematic look but keep it realistic with cool tone

Can you recommend a video essay about movie scores? Could be MCU, action, or scoring in general.

why did the camera have to be named Alexa? you kept waking up my echo!

Thank you. I remember how pissed off I was back when the dynamic range of T.V.'s was so horrifically bad that every horror movie with lots of black scenes was virtually unwatchable. If you adjusted the contrast and brightness to where you could see what was going on in the black portions, you'd get a terrible gray mess. But, if you adjusted the contrast and brightness to where it was appropriately dark, those key scene elements would disappear into black. So, yeah; gray only has virtue where it properly brings the viewer into a sense of reality. (BTW, loved your vid on Dick Tracy.)

This video is about 7 years, and still the problems are persistent. Just watch the Deadpool e Wolverine trailer.

Honestly, I know taste is subjective blablabla, but what you showed as an improvement for me was only a highly saturated image.

Huh, funny how I never noticed that, but once pointed out, it is fairly obvious. Although I have to say that it fits movies like Winter soldier and Civil War better, than let's say Ant-Man, and it actually works into their advantage. But it's true that it probably shouldn't have been used on every movie since they stopped shooting on film, just the ones with a more realistic undertone while the lighter movies would've benefitted from a more colorful approach. It doesn't make the movies ugly per sebut I can definitely see your point.

im late but, mad max: fury road’s and the umbrella acacdemy’s colors are so jsksksks i love them

Counter-point: Marvel used a more muted palette to convince the average movie-goer that what they're watching is real. Once they acquired a huge following they went balls-to-the-wall with colours.

First thing I do before I upload pictures online is to increase their vibrance. More colors always made those picture look better.

Fascinating stuff, my dude! More of this

1:30 Yes... It's need color grading... 1:32 No... That's too much...

I remember when the first Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises came out months apart, and visually speaking, Avengers looked like it was shot on a smartphone compared to DKR. I love Avengers, but the IMAX cameras and post-production from Nolan's team embarrasses its visuals.

You forgot to mention that Marvel has forgettable villians as well besides Loki.

FINALLY I understand the reason why I always thought that airport scene was a bit 'eh' for me

Marvel is really ugly. I think that dc’s movies really make me feel like I’m in a comic book.

Can you do an update now that Endgame and many other movies have come out?

I agreed with you 100% untill you said RED has a more vibrant image than alexas do. Alexas have a better track record over RED in Hollywood. Not saying RED sucks by any means, just saying there have been many great looking movies shot on ARRI digital cameras. ALEXA used to be the go to camera in hollywood productions with RED being an afterthought, although this has changed in the last few years. Once the Alexa 65 is adopted more widely, I think arri will come back out on top. The problem is Arri doesn't seem to care that much about resolution which is what alot of people flock to. I can't even imagine the systems Marvel will need to render and edit 8k weapon footage. What a nightmare.

I think it's their way of making the films seem more realistic and mature instead of doing that on the scripts. Its still light hearted and easy to watch for the masses without losing its seriousness as a superhero movie. Otherwise It'll just become a kid's movie.

They definitely lack color and contrast, it constantly looks like it was shot on an overcast day.

I think despite GOTG2 fixing the issue, Infinity War and Endgame still looked too dull. Edit: every movie after GOTG2 except maybe Ragna-no scratch that, even Ragnarok.

This video made me realize that Marvel's color grading is same in all of its movies, full flat and low contrast

Guardians of the galaxy looked pretty to me

It’s kinda sad a person at home can make the scene look better than the original Edit: also marvel has to stop over using cgi for everything

I guess the only movie had this issue was Civil War as it was really flat. Avengers the first one is still best for colour.

This makes sense. I love to add a bit of color to my videos as well to make them pop and I didn't understand why more people don't.

Now I know why the movies aren't impressing me any more..

No Way Home third final act not only looked ugly but also thr CGI looked unfinished as hell, the part when Garfield catch MJ was out of a direct to TV early 00s series, its really funny that both Tobey and Andrew Spider Man movies look way better than a tentpole 2021 Marvel movie despite them being 20 years old (SM2) or 8 years old (ASM2).

I am a pro grader, I liked your accurate video. My best guess is, they grade for 10bit monitors that can display HDR color depth. and so it looks good on THEIR HDR monitors, but they did not want to create a side grade for NON-HDR monitors, due to time constrain. That is my professional opinion, bc I have worked in that industry.

Can you just recolour all of Civil War so I can watch it again please

Dull/Marvel-like/Sicario-like is not reality-like. Colors in real life are rather vibrant, just look at red clouds at dusk, some Snyder's stuff looks much more realistic, actually, than the "reality-like" MCU stuff.

Film > digital

These color theory/grading videos are so enyojable. I love them

Now that you pointed it out, it actually really frustrates me lol

Ok now I understand why it looks so off to me. Weird more people haven’t noticed this. When I was watching civil war, throughout the whole movie all I kept thinking is “something looks bland, or that it looks cheap somehow”.

They fixed this problem with GOTG 2 and every movie after that

if it werent for this video marvel would still look like this

Answer, because they are super expensive trailers for the next super expensive trailer. Give DC all the shit you want, at least the film makers care about cinematography.

i always felt dc movies more vibrant than marvel ones...now we know the reason

I thing I really dislike in the Avengers movies is most of the sceneries have no texture. Having bright lights everywhere and lens flare doesn't help.

im really glad that marvel is adding more colour to their movies recently, it actually makes the movies much easier to watch

gotg2's visuals were honestly stunning imo