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Lurdiak posted:Age of Ultron was a bit of a mess due to trying to do way too many things at once and obviously being edited down from an ungodly long film, but I don't think most people think it was outright bad. Some people went loving ballistic over Black Widow being given a romantic interest who wasn't Hawkeye. And some of those people misinterpreted her "I'm a monster because I was bred from birth to be an assassin, to the point of being sterilized to keep me from ever having a child to distract me from killing people" speech as "I'm a monster because I can't have kids" and fell over themselves accusing Joss Whedon of being a misogynist.
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Jan 21, 2016 01:58
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I haven't seen it since it came out and didn't think much of it. I wonder how it would come across now? weirdly for a Nick Cave movie, the score is terrible
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Jan 21, 2016 02:00
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chitoryu12 posted:Some people went loving ballistic over Black Widow being given a romantic interest who wasn't Hawkeye. And some of those people misinterpreted her "I'm a monster because I was bred from birth to be an assassin, to the point of being sterilized to keep me from ever having a child to distract me from killing people" speech as "I'm a monster because I can't have kids" and fell over themselves accusing Joss Whedon of being a misogynist. Yeah, those loving weirdos, noticing things in the context that they are said. When she said "I can't have children, you think you're the only monster?" people, somehow, construed the two sentences that are right next to each other as having something to do with each other. I doubt that Whedon is a misogynist. That line is, at best, clumsy as gently caress though.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:06
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chitoryu12 posted:Some people went loving ballistic over Black Widow being given a romantic interest who wasn't Hawkeye. And some of those people misinterpreted her "I'm a monster because I was bred from birth to be an assassin, to the point of being sterilized to keep me from ever having a child to distract me from killing people" speech as "I'm a monster because I can't have kids" and fell over themselves accusing Joss Whedon of being a misogynist. Ok well that's kind of weird. Although pairing her with Hulk was a really dumb move that no one wanted to see, and really felt like Joss Whedon writing the character he relates to most as dating the badass girl he has a crush on. At any rate I'd assume people who hated the movie for those reasons are not representative of the average movie goer.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:23
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Snowman_McK posted:Yeah, those loving weirdos, noticing things in the context that they are said. When she said "I can't have children, you think you're the only monster?" people, somehow, construed the two sentences that are right next to each other as having something to do with each other. The context is that this is the same movie that had flashback scenes to Natasha's training in the Red Room, including executing a prisoner as a teenager. You're supposed to put that in combination with all the other stuff the movie has told you about her background to understand the totality, instead of just blithely assuming that every line exists in a vacuum.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:28
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Snowman_McK posted:Yeah, those loving weirdos, noticing things in the context that they are said. When she said "I can't have children, you think you're the only monster?" people, somehow, construed the two sentences that are right next to each other as having something to do with each other. I think the thing is that the source material is misogynistic for historical reasons, and people expect Whedon to be intelligent and creative about that. That's kind of supposed to be his thing. Pointing that out is only unusual if you have an emotional attachment to a very specific configuration of priorities that nobody else gives a poo poo about.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:42
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chitoryu12 posted:The context is that this is the same movie that had flashback scenes to Natasha's training in the Red Room, including executing a prisoner as a teenager. You're supposed to put that in combination with all the other stuff the movie has told you about her background to understand the totality, instead of just blithely assuming that every line exists in a vacuum. I'm not assuming they're in a vacuum. I'm assuming it relates to the line immediately beforehand. HTH. At best, the line is clumsily putting the most loaded element right next to the punchline, at worst, it's making not being able to breed just as bad as being a remorseless killing machine. Here's a fixed version. "They programmed me, I did bad things, I'm barely human. You're not the only monster." *grim chuckle* "This madness stops with me though. Maybe that's something to be grateful for. " Now, that's poo poo, and I know it. I'm not a highly paid Hollywood writer. I'm not even a well regarded Something Awful poster. But it at least avoids the frankly loving weird implications of the current version of the line. Hodgepodge posted:I think the thing is that the source material is misogynistic for historical reasons, and people expect Whedon to be intelligent and creative about that. That's kind of supposed to be his thing. Pointing that out is only unusual if you have an emotional attachment to a very specific configuration of priorities that nobody else gives a poo poo about. The priorities come from Widow being one of the very few women characters in the series with any agency, and that he kind of flubbed her in the first Avengers too.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:46
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Snowman_McK posted:The priorities come from Widow being one of the very few women characters in the series with any agency, and that he kind of flubbed her in the first Avengers too. Arguably, she didn't have really any agency. She was a member of SHIELD, exclusively acting under someone else's orders. Maybe having the ability to take a little liberty with it, but she was never doing anything with her life except doing the missions and killing the people she was ordered to. For her entire life. Her behavior in Age of Ultron is about her trying to actually, truly grasp some kind of independence and do what she wants to do with her life, instead of being used as a tool by the good guys as much as she was used by the bad guys.
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Jan 21, 2016 02:53
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chitoryu12 posted:Arguably, she didn't have really any agency. She was a member of SHIELD, exclusively acting under someone else's orders. Maybe having the ability to take a little liberty with it, but she was never doing anything with her life except doing the missions and killing the people she was ordered to. For her entire life. And she shacks up with Hulk, whose relationship with her up to that point has borne a striking and terrifying resemblance to that of an abusive, violent marriage. Again, I don't think Whedon has any of the horrifying ideology that his Avengers movies imply. I do think that he does not consider the implications of things. The same clumsiness around Black Widow is also present when Iron Man, a reformed war profiteer escaping his father's nuclear legacy, rides an atom bomb into an alien city. Or when, confronted with mass wiretapping, Captain America just kind of shrugs. Or when Thor throws a hammer blow that would have killed Captain America except for his shield, which Thor didn't know about until after the fact. They're just clumsy, and the reaction to Ultron is just people finding the movie dull enough to actually notice all this poo poo.
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Jan 21, 2016 03:06
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Snowman_McK posted:Or when, confronted with mass wiretapping, Captain America just kind of shrugs. Which feels particularly egregious when you look at how the same thing was handled in The Dark Knight - Batman considered it a one-time only last resort option to be used when he'd run out of ideas, and Lucius Fox was horrified by it.
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Jan 21, 2016 05:10
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One thing that stands out to me about Age of Ultron is that the heroes aren't brought low by Ultron himself, they're defeated by his henchwoman, who also (for some reason that's never really explained well) is the reason Ultron is created. The big scary villain everyone is terrified of and hiding from isn't even what caused the problem. Then that character switches sides, and the super duper ultimate robot body ultron was going to get that would make him unstoppable also switches sides. So what exactly is left for the heroes to conquer after the person that defeated them and the looming threat are both dealt with? Like sure the movie comes up with something for them to do, but Ultron might as well have been dead at that point for all it mattered.
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Jan 21, 2016 05:26
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The coolest bit is when Cap goes "I'll hold him off" and Ultron can barely beat him in a straight fistfight. Jesus gently caress, what a mess of a movie.
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Jan 21, 2016 05:53
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Hodgepodge posted:Basically, there should be a warning sticker on some films and stories that reads: warning: bleak as gently caress.
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Jan 21, 2016 07:17
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My Lovely Horse posted:"Directed by John Hillcoat" Hey now, you make it sound like the guy who made Ghosts... of the Civil Dead and The Proposition almost seems to specialise in overbearingly grim and depressing films.
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Jan 21, 2016 07:53
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Snowman_McK posted:The coolest bit is when Cap goes "I'll hold him off" and Ultron can barely beat him in a straight fistfight. This was so stupid, they built it up briefly but as a serious business situation where Captain America could even conceivably die, then like two minutes later I was wondering why he hadn't ripped Ultron's arms off yet since he was just stand up boxing with him and tossing him around. But I think inconsistent robot durability is an issue in tons of movies even if they don't have to try to fit a bunch of superheroes with wildly different abilities together. Like in the Total Recall remake. Sometimes the robots are SUPER TOUGH and take a lot of shots to down, sometimes just one. Sometimes one gets near a person and it's over like in The Terminator and then other times a character just gingerly removes the entire front chest of the robot like it's a big USB and the robot just lets the person do that and collapses.
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Jan 21, 2016 20:04
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The worst is when the robot that can kill you with one throat crush or punch decided the best course of action is to throw you around. I'm looking at you, every single terminator movie past the 2nd one.
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Jan 21, 2016 20:14
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Speaking of Terminator sequels, He's right there. Shoot him. You're a robot. Why are you gloating and taunting? Just kill him. Crush his puny flesh with those hands you just used to rip rebar in half. Oh for gently caress's sake, now he's winning. You idiot. e: you're CHOKING him and you're not applying 1% of your total strength to pop his head off? I just saw you gently push a steel door in half. Christ, man, get it together. Also see: every Transformers movie where a 6,000 pound, 20 foot tall robot throws a human around, or that scene where LaBoeuf wrestles with the spinning razor blood bot by grabbing it's razor body while it thrashes wildly. The Anime Liker fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jan 21, 2016 |
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Jan 21, 2016 20:45
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Neo Rasa posted:This was so stupid, they built it up briefly but as a serious business situation where Captain America could even conceivably die, then like two minutes later I was wondering why he hadn't ripped Ultron's arms off yet since he was just stand up boxing with him and tossing him around. I remember that being a problem in Total Recall - Bland Edition. They use the robots as shields, which I thought was pretty cool. Then they would get shot and just fall off something to their death. In case you ever needed confirmation that there is no justice in the world beyond what we impose on it, the guy who made that movie was married to Kate Beckinsale for loving years.
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Jan 21, 2016 22:49
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Snowman_McK posted:In case you ever needed confirmation that there is no justice in the world beyond what we impose on it, the guy who made that movie was married to Kate Beckinsale for loving years. So was he in effect saying that despite being married to Kate Beckinsale, his dream woman is actually Jessica Biel?
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Jan 21, 2016 22:54
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:So was he in effect saying that despite being married to Kate Beckinsale, his dream woman is actually Jessica Biel? Holy poo poo. Now we know why the marriage ended.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:08
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Ultron was bad-to-middling for several reasons, but to be somewhat topical it's because Whedon never progressed past second-wave feminism, where being a Strong Female Character was downright progressive. Also because Whedon has exactly one story in him and it wore out its welcome somewhere between Buffy and Dollhouse (ick). He's so caught up on certain archetypes he forgets to write/direct actual characters - ya know, like the ones in Fury Road where by virtue of simply being treated as PEOPLE (instead of "Angry Chick" and "Pregnant Wife" and "Virgin") it's far and away a better story.
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Jan 22, 2016 04:22
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Buried somewhere in one of these threads, there's a quote that sums up the difference. Whedon is "She's a woman but she punches things." Whereas we should have moved on to "She's a woman and she punches things."
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Jan 22, 2016 04:25
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Which reminded me of Whedon having a go at Jurassic World for being "sexist." It's interesting to see that there's actually been some debate about the heroine of the film, and she did strike me more as the latter out of the two - "she's a woman and she's involved in the day-to-day operations of the major theme park that is now going tits up and she has to rescue her nephews before they end up being eaten by that hybrid dinosaur." And dragging things slightly back on topic, it was rather telling that Miller could write a cast of far more nuanced female characters (note: plural) for a 2-hour film than Whedon could write 1 across two movies that combine to about 6 hours. edogawa rando fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 05:05
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The Dag has so much more character built into her than any "male feminist" Hollywood director could dream of, and she's literally the least important named character. Joss Whedon and that enormous sack of untalented poo poo Zack Snyder WISH they could write characters like Miller and co. Although, while I thought Star War 7 was aggressively mediocre, I do love that Rey completely worked as a character by not being a cartoonish "strong female character" that's just a macho male character with a brush of feminine paint over it. That's really how low the bar is, "have a woman exist and don't make her a male power fantasy or a sex object", and Whedon's Black Widow and literally every Zack Snyder character couldn't get over it. As for Jurassic World, it's like a comedy sketch where you're watching men hopelessly trying to write a believable "strong female character" and the cynical lead writer/producer just keeps shouting "I love it! But make her more of a dumb bitch!"
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Jan 22, 2016 05:28
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I honestly doubt Zack Snyder thinks he's making feminist characters, he just says that to deflect criticism.
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Jan 22, 2016 05:40
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Lurdiak posted:I honestly doubt Zack Snyder thinks he's making feminist characters, he just says that to deflect criticism. I want to know this is true, because if he's a true believer of his own press, that's insane levels of missing your own point.
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Jan 22, 2016 05:50
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FEMAosa saving women and children from wasteland tyrant Polio Joe
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Jan 22, 2016 09:42
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A GLISTENING HODOR posted:The Dag has so much more character built into her than any "male feminist" Hollywood director could dream of, and she's literally the least important named character. Joss Whedon and that enormous sack of untalented poo poo Zack Snyder WISH they could write characters like Miller and co. You're not thinking hard enough about the women in Zack Snyder's movies.
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Jan 22, 2016 11:15
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Vagabundo posted:Which reminded me of Whedon having a go at Jurassic World for being "sexist." It's interesting to see that there's actually been some debate about the heroine of the film, and she did strike me more as the latter out of the two - "she's a woman and she's involved in the day-to-day operations of the major theme park that is now going tits up and she has to rescue her nephews before they end up being eaten by that hybrid dinosaur." She's a woman and she's involved in the day-to-day operations of the major theme park that is now going tits up because she she was part of some really bad decisions about the new dinosaur and it looks like she will not be held accountable for them and she had to be rescued by a big strong white man. Good stuff.
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Jan 22, 2016 14:11
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GORDON posted:and she had to be rescued by a big strong white man. No, that's not what happened. Unless you're trying to argue the T-Rex and that velociraptor are strong white men.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:59
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Vagabundo posted:No, that's not what happened. She does flat out go from being a 'tough, independent work woman' to a maternal wifely figure in the course of two hours. It's a pretty lovely character.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:50
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It's not so much that she's written poorly as Chris Pratt's character is written as a huge loving rear end in a top hat but treated like he's just a cool dude by her and the rest of the cast.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:20
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Lurdiak posted:It's not so much that she's written poorly as Chris Pratt's character is written as a huge loving rear end in a top hat but treated like he's just a cool dude by her and the rest of the cast. They just went "We hired Chris Pratt, we don't need to write him." His innate likability only goes so far. And you end up with a woman who ties herself to a man because, well, he's nearby.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:28
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Snowman_McK posted:She does flat out go from being a 'tough, independent work woman' to a maternal wifely figure in the course of two hours. It's a pretty lovely character. This interpretation of the character does require quite a logical leap and a fair amount of projection to work, like believing that women who have careers are incapable of also having romantic relationships, as if she's a loving Jedi from the prequels.
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Jan 23, 2016 00:53
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Vagabundo posted:This interpretation of the character does require quite a logical leap and a fair amount of projection to work, like believing that women who have careers are incapable of also having romantic relationships, as if she's a loving Jedi from the prequels.
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Jan 23, 2016 01:03
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Vagabundo posted:This interpretation of the character does require quite a logical leap and a fair amount of projection to work, like believing that women who have careers are incapable of also having romantic relationships, as if she's a loving Jedi from the prequels. Or just noticing that she doesn't make a single decision for most of the movie (the part of the movie where she's with the male lead, coincidentally) and ends up falling head over heels in love with a male character who's written as a total rear end in a top hat. So it's more 'noticing the stuff that happens' than projecting or whatever.
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Jan 23, 2016 01:22
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It's been ages since I saw it, but I always liked how Ellie and Grant from the original film had a prior relationship and proceed to act as friends and colleagues after a little initial awkwardness.
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Jan 23, 2016 02:56
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Hodgepodge posted:It's been ages since I saw it, but I always liked how Ellie and Grant from the original film had a prior relationship and proceed to act as friends and colleagues after a little initial awkwardness. Aren't Ellie and Grant supposed to be in a relationship in the first film? Like the big stumbling block between them was that Grant didn't like kids, didn't want kids, and during the course of the film he grew to appreciate kids. More on topic, Fury Road's hit HBO, and this is just the perfect cable film. You can drop in at any point and it's instantly watchable.
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Jan 23, 2016 03:23
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Vagabundo posted:This interpretation of the character does require quite a logical leap and a fair amount of projection to work, like believing that women who have careers are incapable of also having romantic relationships, as if she's a loving Jedi from the prequels. I'm slowly starting to notice this, but people bring up the prequels more and more often as some sort of negative bounding limit. Its almost getting to the point of  ...mention them and you're argument is discarded. Some sort of Lucas's Law? Does mentioning Godwins law invoke godwins law? I'm not a lawyer.
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Jan 23, 2016 05:21
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They're just an extremely good example of high budget movies with really obvious flaws you can point out, and enough people have seen them that the reference won't be lost on whoever's talking. If I mention something from Princess of Mars, nobody's gonna know what the gently caress I'm talking about.
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Jan 23, 2016 05:49
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