"He's right behind me, isn't he?" "Well, THAT just happened." "Hey, uh, maybe DON'T do that?" You've all heard these lines before. They're punchlines that themselves have become punchlines in recent years: light, quippy, supposedly self-aware dialogue made massive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and since seen in everything from Dragon Age: The Veilguard to God of War: Ragnarok, to name a few examples. It's also been derided in games like Forspoken and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, while Thor: Love and Thunder and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ('they fly now!') have taken flak for it on the film side.
It's become so ubiquitous as a style that I almost didn't notice it anymore, but that changed when Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 suddenly did away with it. And in doing so it's made a real, researched and borderline mundane place in history feel more fantastical and unique than any quasi-dimensional magical netherrealm I can remember.
