MacheteZombie posted:

I watched Dr. Strange last night. Was not very good outside of a few moments. The ending to the climatic fight was good though.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

...Undermining his plan to kill someone? He abandoned that.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

You're confusing things like moral statements, messages, and themes together. The conclusion of BvS is Superman sacrificing himself in an ultimate expression of power and love, which is what resolves most of the tensions running through the movie.


No it isn't. Loving an individual is how he's able to love the world.

A Gnarlacious Bro posted:

That's not true at all

McCloud posted:

Glichwraith, I'd be happy to respond to the rest of your posts, but I don't want you to feel ganged up on. I do want to respond to this bit though.
His decision to gather super heroes is two fold: partly because of his regret at Supermans loss. The world lost its greatest champion, and he knows there are other heroes who could help fill the void that he left. But more importantly, he also still has the foreboding sense that something wicked is coming their way. Both via Lex's insane rants, and his vision of the flash.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Well, some detachment is to be expected, and that ultimately reflects the mood of the source material. Tintin stories themselves don't particularly evoke tension or exhilaration. In that it's just part of the tradition it helped form: Eurocomics in general tend to favour some degree of detachment on part of the viewer, compared to many American or Japanese works. Tintin after all has no reason to go on his adventures save for the adventures themselves, as opposed to any ideological cause or emotional investment. The joy of the movie comes from motion itself, and how you're made aware of it - and art hardly exists for any reason but to make it's audience aware and perceptive.


Lol if you operate on the level of plot holes and continuity.

Shageletic posted:

But that was what the movie was trying to do, helmed by the greatest set piece creator ever? There's no other reason to have set pieces that last for ten minutes or longer other than to try to have an audience evoke those feelings of excitement, and the fact that it was CGI totally hollowed that possibility out.

Funny thing is, another Zemekis' CGI creations (Beowulf) managed to get out under from this limitation by focusing on the drama, with the attempted heart stopping portions being the worst of what is actually a pretty decent movie.

glitchwraith posted:

No, undermining the stated motives of the first two acts. Again, such a change is a fine character arc, but it happens so suddenly and to such a great extent that it goes against the character as established within the film.


Narrative is always a message of some type or another, moral statements are one potential type of message, and themes are central topics of that message. Superman sacrificing himself is the conclusion of the plot, but not necessarily of the themes.

twistedmentat posted:

And its such a juvenile outlook to think "mature" means dark, depressing, gritty and violent. This bizzare fixation with just doing Frank Miller's Batman is to blame I feel. It's as if they're beholden to it because every time there's a list of best Batman stories, DKR always tops it, and it just feels lazy, as if they don't want to dig any deeper into Batman massive catalog of books to find a different interpretation of the character.

twistedmentat posted:

And I said it before doing Christ Allegories with Superman is just really loving lazy at this point. No one's going "oh he's supposed to be Jesus!" becuase, again, it's something that been done so often that it's lost any impact.

glitchwraith posted:

Only three people engaging with me, so I'm far from ganged up on. Again, I understand the basic motivation for him to gather the supers, but feel this is in stark contrast to a mere day or so earlier, when he was trying to kill the champion he is now trying to replace. It makes no sense, given the time frame, to arrive so quickly at that conclusion when before he was so stubbornly assured of his course of action.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

You were originally asking for BvS's singular message. You seem to have forgotten that by starting to mix in narratives and moral statements, all based on the fallacy that there must be a singular moral. Besides, BvS has one (sacrifice for others overcomes death).

McCloud posted:

His single minded obsession was rooted in fear and anger. Once he realised that he was in effect turning into his parents assassin his mind he stepped back from the ledge. And from there, he not only faced a supermonster, he fought side by side with two worthy allies for a just cause.

His main motive for attacking Superman was his fear that he would inevitably turn on us, because that's the story of his life. He believed no one stayed good in this world, and that included Superman. But he was proven wrong. He's a convert. And no one is as fanatical as the converted.

glitchwraith posted:

I was originally asking for any message in the movie, singular or otherwise, as I do not believe it has any, or at least, not one well told, which I feel is supported by the fact that you've ignored my follow-up question.

glitchwraith posted:

I guess I don't see how he was converted. Superman doesn't really do anything other than what he has done before; reacted to people attacking him and his loved ones. The only difference is that this time he dies in the process. So, how does that disprove Bruce's original assumption that no-one stays good?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Well it's a very silly question. Superman loves people to save them and protect them. His love for Lois is this abstract love made concrete. Sexual love is great. There's your message.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

To be honest, you give the impression that you just don't like animation.


You were originally asking for BvS's singular message. You seem to have forgotten that by starting to mix in narratives and moral statements, all based on the fallacy that there must be a singular moral. Besides, BvS has one (sacrifice for others overcomes death).

glitchwraith posted:

Care to elaborate this point? I feel even general meditations on themes arrive at some kind of definitive statement regarding them.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

You're imagining Batman "happily murdering" people. While saving Martha, he's only doing what he's been doing for over 70 years, it's just more obviously lethal than usual. The 'problem' people have with this incarnation of Batman is that him being a weirdo fascist vigilante can't be ignored. Like I mentioned earlier, fans are perfectly happy with their weird fascist hero as long as the fascism is tastefully balanced out by other elements (in a similar example, another goon posted about how Iron Man's libertarianism was acceptable because it could be ignored).

purple death ray posted:

The thing about BvS is that most of this stuff he's saying is actually true, but the finished product is so poorly edited and badly directed that it undermines itself expressing these themes and ideas to the point that most people watching the movie aren't going to pick up on them. It's really not just a case of "Batman shouldn't be killing people!" or "Superman frowns too much!", even though both of those things are probably true, the movie has much much deeper problems than that.

People like bravest lamps focus on these statements because they can reassure themselves that they are shallow criticisms made by shallow people who don't comprehend Serious Cinema and not be forced to consider that the movie might actually be really badly put together. Just because your average moviegoer doesn't spend hours debating the artistic merits of the Transformers films, and therefore maybe doesn't have the language to describe exactly what was bad about it, that doesn't magically invalidate their opinion on the movie.

glitchwraith posted:

It is a silly question, which is why it's strange the movie doesn't have an answer for it. He is conflicted about saving and protecting people, so we don't see any love for doing so outside of Lois. Going off of his depiction in this movie, where do we see him loving someone who is not his mother or his romantic partner? Why should we assume he saves other people out of love instead of obligation?

I will begrudgingly admit Batman's motivations may have been stronger than I initially realized, but still feel Superman's lack of involvement and character growth in the overall story hampers the whole thing.

SlimGoodbody posted:

End my loving life, I'm starting to agree with BotL. Is this what going insane feels like?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I think you should look at your own assumptions. You're saying that it's a problem that we don't see Superman showing "any love" for saving people. What does this actually mean? Saving people is a feat of compassion and humanity, what more does he need to do to show how he cares for people? It almost seems like you're complaint is that he doesn't smile enough.

site posted:

Watched it for the first time the other day as well. The effects were and absolutely made to be seen high af but yeah the movie itself was fairly bland

Even bald, Tilda got it tho

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I've noticed a lot how Superman is the most transparent character ever, but both fictional characters and real people project their own fear and malice onto him. He's saving people, but he doesn't seem to like it. Does he actually not care for humanity?

BrianWilly posted:

I will start talking about racism in Marvel movies again.

SlimGoodbody posted:

That's worth talking about though. What do you think of something like GotG's propensity to only include minority characters under a thick layer of alien makeup? Intentional on some level, or just dumb and poorly planned?

SlimGoodbody posted:

That's worth talking about though. What do you think of something like GotG's propensity to only include minority characters under a thick layer of alien makeup? Intentional on some level, or just dumb and poorly planned?

BrianWilly posted:

Martian Manhunter is always played by black actors in adaptations

BrianWilly posted:

Hey friends I have a novel notion.

Stop engaging with the CineD gimmicks who only come in here to take potshots at the BSS nerds.

Or else I will start talking about racism in Marvel movies again.

BrianWilly posted:

Well I personally think the person who posts worse than the people who post worse than them should


It's an industry staple, unfortunately. It's the same reason Martian Manhunter is always played by black actors in adaptations; otherness is coded with non-whiteness in media. Particularly for representations of aliens, where the major traits to be represented are "looks different from me" and "sounds different from me."

Sometimes this can work to a story's advantage, but it stops being intentional allegory and starts being unintentional racism when it's so prevalent across the board.

It's further compounded by the lead-versus-side-character racial glass ceiling in media that often gets overlooked. It's not that actors of color don't get jobs; it's that they get jobs as the villains or supporting characters instead of the leads. Combine this with the fact that your main characters in sci-fi and fantasy are usually going to be humans (because humans are the audience viewpoint figure), while the side characters are the non-humans, and you naturally end up with all your actors of color playing non-humans.

So the question of "is it intentional or just poor planning" is hard to answer, because it's trend, which makes it a little of both. It's also unfortunately a trend that doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, since we're getting GotG2 and the only new non-white actor they got (Pom Klementieff, playing Mantis) just so happen to also be a make-up covered alien.

Unkempt posted:

Unkempt posted:

purple death ray posted:

Oh I know. Burtons Batman is easily in my top five Batmen and he kills people left and right. Movies have always struggled with Batman because they're always action movies, and action movie heroes kill people. I can watch Batman kill dudes in a movie, no problem, but don't act like it's some deep, symbolic act that shows his character grow and change when it absolutely does not change, and grasping at this idea that all of those guys he wastes in the third act somehow chose to die is absurd.

twistedmentat posted:

Not even a mention of Brie Larsen. Seriously, All i want to see at least a concept of her in the Captain Marvel costume.

howe_sam posted:

They need a director first.

Big Mean Jerk posted:

You gotta lay off the chocos, J'onn