Commentary: Origin Scenes and Why We Should Stop that Sh!t

I've watched a lot of superhero movies, live action and animated. So many that they start to blur together after a while, but FOUR stand out.

Blade (1998). It wasn't the best I've seen, or the worst. Certainly not the most memorable. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single quotable line of dialouge. Sure, I've seen the memes, the glorious, glorious, memes, but I can't say that I really remember too much from it that I could recite verbatim. What I do remember is the Blade origin story; combined its about a minute and half long, maybe two.

Blade's mother is in the emergency room, we hear that she's been attacked and that she's pregnant, that she's dying, and cut to two 20-somethings cruising through downtown Detroit at night headed to an underground party. Everyone gets sprayed with blood and then awesome walks into the room. Later Whister mentions that he found Blade feeding on the homeless and Deacon Frost mentions that he was the one who killed his mother. That's it.

The origin of Marvel Comics half human-half vampire nightstalking daywalker is so short that if you missed the opening credits, you had to wait for the movie to come out on VHS to see them again. For you kids, a VHS is a large plastic box that contains magnetic tape. It must be inserted into a VCR with your television set to channel 3 in order to view the contents.

... ... ... [sigh] A VCR is a... You know what? You have Google.

When the movie came out, I knew next to nothing about Blade. None of us really did. Not even Welsely Snipes, who learned about him accidententally while attending a meeting at Marvel about portraying Black Panther. He complained that there simply weren't enough prominent heroes of color, and he was provided with an issue of Blade. And the rest is history.

I know some of you are trying to remember what other three modern superhero movie don't include a drawn out origin that kills the mood, sets up the entire story, and leaves you knowing what's going to happen.

Batman (1989), The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), and V for Vendetta (2005).

I'm not kidding, there's some origin stuff about halfway and a quarter of the way through respectively, but both scenes are about 5-10 minutes long if that. And there's a reason: That works. Long drawn out origins hurt the story unless they're as compelling and as original as the story. Please see: The Mask of Zorro.

SPOILERS:

Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered and he goes on a lifelong quest to prevent the same suffering from happening to others.
Clark Kent is orphaned and raised by the Kents who steward him to not think of his abilities as a right, but a a privalage to use to help others.
Peter Parker is left with his Aunt and Uncle after his parents death, shunned by his peers, he turns to reading. After being bitten by a radioactive/genetically altered spider he gains powers, gets cocky, but learns something about responsibilty after he accidentally contributes to his Uncle's death.

That's the big three and they've been written in stone for last 77, 76, and 53 years respectively, but you know they can't not tell us something they've already told us a hundred times. And they're going to tell us again, and again. And again. And, Lord help us, again.

The following recipe has been used successfully for over 400 years: Short intro, action, more detail, action. Bake for about two hours. Repeat.