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Taika Waititi read one Thor comic book and said yeah we’re not doing this and did his own thing and it’s quite beloved. Filmmakers have no obligation to represent anything.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:05
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site posted:You called discussion about it petty and that you like it and there are other mediums so shut up about it lol My point is that you're allowed to dislike anything for whatever reason, no matter how petty. I dislike things for incredibly petty reasons all the time. That, however, does not mean that the entire concept is bad because you don't like it for not being like other works using the characters, and it's not a tragedy that a couple of movies not conforming to your expectations exists. This isn't a controversial view, Batman: Brave and the Bold took a similar stance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFBW3tFmkig There is room for plenty of reinterpretation and exploration of the characters in a variety of tones and scenarios.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:07
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Schwarzwald posted:Frankly, I don't think Synder (or any other filmmaker) has the obligation to accurately represent decades of comic work. The misrepresentation lies in the idea that "These Characters Do Not Kill, Ever" are baby versions of "Okay, It's Fine To Do A Little Murder, As a Treat" because that is a child's understanding. The fiction of being able to Be Better is the point
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Feb 4, 2021 06:08
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Indeed, the vibrant tradition of reinterpreting characters, and emphasizing different aspects of them, even in mutually contradictory ways, is one of the great strengths of the classic characters of superhero comics. A reader ought not be so broken up when a particular depiction doesn't land for them.
Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 06:10
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Roth posted:My point is that you're allowed to dislike anything for whatever reason, no matter how petty. I dislike things for incredibly petty reasons all the time. That, however, does not mean that the entire concept is bad because you don't like it for not being like other works using the characters, and it's not a tragedy that a couple of movies not conforming to your expectations exists. Okay? Do people need to put "in my opinion" at the start of every post in big bold letters? I don't get what you're on about here, this has only ever been people going "I didn't like this movie for x reason."
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Feb 4, 2021 06:11
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Bongo Bill posted:Indeed, the vibrant tradition of reinterpreting characters, and emphasizing different aspects of them, even in mutually contradictory ways, is one of the great strengths of the classic characters of superhero comics. Viewer ought not be so broken up when a particular depiction doesn't land for them. Right, if Spider-Man can drone strike then Batman should say gently caress.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:12
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site posted:The misrepresentation lies in the idea that "These Characters Do Not Kill, Ever" are baby versions of "Okay, It's Fine To Do A Little Murder, As a Treat" because that is a child's understanding. The fiction of being able to Be Better is the point It's less that never killing is more juvenile than sometimes killing, and more that centralizing the question of whether the violence is lethal or not is missing the point in, I think they were saying, a somewhat juvenile way.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:18
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Arist posted:Okay? Do people need to put "in my opinion" at the start of every post in big bold letters? I don't get what you're on about here, this has only ever been people going "I didn't like this movie for x reason." Would it help if I bolded the part where I say it's fine to dislike the movies because it's not what you want out of the characters? I'm saying that the movies not matching your expectations for what the characters should be does not make them bad. Just as people calling Batman: Brave and the Bold too "kiddy" and not serious enough were allowed to dislike it, but that does not mean the show itself is flawed as a concept. If the movies aren't too your liking, then that's fine, but there's also a lot more that is to your liking and I don't see why the movies should be changed to conform to your expectations.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:19
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site posted:The misrepresentation lies in the idea that "These Characters Do Not Kill, Ever" are baby versions of "Okay, It's Fine To Do A Little Murder, As a Treat" because that is a child's understanding. Maybe so, but "Batman's allowed a little murder, as a treat" is in no way inaccurate to his common portrayal. The thread was talking about Batman Returns not that long ago, for example.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:22
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Nm
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Feb 4, 2021 06:24
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Roth posted:Would it help if I bolded the part where I say it's fine to dislike the movies because it's not what you want out of the characters? I'm saying that the movies not matching your expectations for what the characters should be does not make them bad. Just as people calling Batman: Brave and the Bold too "kiddy" and not serious enough were allowed to dislike it, but that does not mean the show itself is flawed as a concept. Legitimately, who are you talking to with this? Because it isn't anyone in this thread. e: No one here has the power to change these movies. We're just talking about why we don't like them. Going "they shouldn't be changed to conform to your expectations" is bizarre because that was never a possibility.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:34
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There's a monumental difference between a character that is gratified by the difference they can make in other people's lives, versus a character who is burdened by a Sisyphean task that he is bound to without any recourse. One is inspiring. The other is...well, cynical. Spider-Man, for instance, isn't particularly burdened by the idea that being Spider-Man is a useless, thankless task that leads to more harm than good. He knows that him being Spider-Man is good...for other people. His dilemma falls instead more along the lines where his personal life suffers if he's Spider-Man too much, and vice versa. This provides conflict for his narrative, but it's a surmountable conflict, and many films and stories outright show him surmounting it. The drama this portrays is realistic, but ultimately inspirational.  Per Snyder however, being Superman brings Clark no gratification whatsoever. We're not shown this process at all; any notion that Clark feels at all rewarded by his choice to reveal himself is, again, pure projection. Even his most loved ones are constantly saying things like "Yeah I don't know if you should be doing this, maybe just don't care about other people so much." His dilemma is that the world punishes him for every good deed that he does...and this dilemma is never surmounted. He literally just dies instead of surmounting it. If you like to consume that take on heroism, well, whatever, it's all fiction, it's all fake, read whatever, watch whatever. But it is absolutely cynical; you have literally described a cynical story. Just like it's cynical to suggest that superheroes fighting crime necessarily requires a body count, or any other description of Snyder's grim and dark stories. And per my original point, it's really weird to be looking at these very overtly grim, very openly dark films and reinterpreting all these elements that are very obviously grim and dark so that killing people is somehow inspirational instead. Way more inspirational than not shooting people! It seems like a very subdued form of goalpost-shifting; we've somehow presumed that cynicism is bad, so now we have to represent Snyder as absolutely everything except cynical so that he's actually good.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:37
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one must imagine Sisyphus happy
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Feb 4, 2021 06:40
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Lt. Danger posted:one must imagine Sisyphus happy Weird, I thought this Superman was supposed to be inspirational and idealistic?
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Feb 4, 2021 06:42
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Arist posted:Legitimately, who are you talking to with this? Because it isn't anyone in this thread. You were complaining about new Batman movies not being for kids two pages ago. I find it hard to believe you don't have an idea of what the movies should be.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:44
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Sisyphus is literally a criminal who angered the gods and is being punished for his crimes against nature, but sure I can imagine him happy.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:46
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Roth posted:You were complaining about new Batman movies not being for kids two pages ago. I find it hard to believe you don't have an idea of what the movies should be. What point do you think you're making here? You're responding to any criticism of these movies with "they shouldn't change!" It's downright petulant.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:49
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BrianWilly posted:There's a monumental difference between a character that is gratified by the difference they can make in other people's lives, versus a character who is burdened by a Sisyphean task that he is bound to without any recourse. One is inspiring. The other is...well, cynical. I think you misunderstand. I don't believe Man of Steel and BvS to be happy go lucky movies. I simply find the contrast of a world that sucks, and finding the drive to continue to be good in spite of that optimistic in nature regardless. There's a strain of online leftists that have given over fully to thinking that we're all doomed so nothing matters that I just don't find much respect for. I do have more respect for people that don't give up on fighting for a better future regardless of how grim it seems. That's the kind of optimism that I see in MoS/BvS: That it's still worth doing, no matter how hopeless it may seem.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:51
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I think I'm either not explaining myself well, or just suffering massive brainworms, so I'm going to bow out. Apologies if I was being an rear end.
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Feb 4, 2021 07:04
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BrianWilly posted:Per Snyder however, being Superman brings Clark no gratification whatsoever. We're not shown this process at all; any notion that Clark feels at all rewarded by his choice to reveal himself is, again, pure projection. Even his most loved ones are constantly saying things like "Yeah I don't know if you should be doing this, maybe just don't care about other people so much." His dilemma is that the world punishes him for every good deed that he does...and this dilemma is never surmounted. He literally just dies instead of surmounting it. How many real life heroes does this apply to? You could just as easily point out that MLK and Malcolm X died before seeing the end of structural racism.
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Feb 4, 2021 07:05
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When I think of cynicism, I think of it as having low trust in others' motives, or preferring to assume that people's actions come from a selfish or amoral attitude. In that sense, Superman actually overcomes his own cynicism of humanity in "Man of Steel," in which one his last lines was "I'll just have to trust you," whereas previously he thought that if he were revealed he would be hated and feared. In the sequel, he overcomes Batman's cynicism as well, managing to persuade him at last of his good intentions. When he notices himself becoming more cynical after the bombing ("I'm afraid I didn't see it because I wasn't looking") that's what provokes him to run off into the mountains. Trusting in others and inspiring them to be better people is a major part of what he does. That's the hope that he symbolizes. But it is true that he doesn't inhabit a world that is depicted as inspiring. Nobody else in these movies seems to think much of Earth. Jor-El thinks it has potential, but qualifies it with "They will stumble. They will fall." Jonathan Kent has a grim outlook, traumatized by unintended consequences. Zod, of course, regards it as primitive or even bestial and thinks nothing of wiping it out to start another doomed colony. The military mostly just causes collateral damage. Wonder Woman gave up on the world of men decades ago because of all the wars and stuff. Lex Luthor doesn't seem to think much of it, of course, and then there's Batman at his grimmest and darkest, having nightmares about a tyrant Superman governing a colony of Apokolips. This crappy little bullshit world where they send drones to spy on the Fortress of Solitude, which is in danger of becoming a second Krypton all on its own - Superman is willing to give up anything for even a chance to save it. Superman isn't cynical about the world, and the movie isn't cynical about Superman. However, Henry Cavill doesn't give a very genial performance, the few jokes are mostly rather understated sight gags (like Zod throwing Superman into a sign on the work site and the placards fall off so it says "this site has worked 0 days without an accident"), and the tone is unrelentingly grave and serious. Aside from learning to fly, they're not joyous movies. But they are earnest in a way that I find incompatible with cynicism.
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Feb 4, 2021 07:12
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Arist posted:What point do you think you're making here? Arist posted:Why is this thread so loving snide nowadays? Arist posted:I think this is an incredibly lovely response!
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Feb 4, 2021 07:14
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And also, because someone asked earlier, my favorite iterations of the Worlds finest is probably All Star Superman, Morrisons JLA and Brave and the bold (the animated series, not the comic). Incidentally, the latter also has my favorite version of Aquaman
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Feb 4, 2021 07:24
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Reflecting on Snyder's Batman all I can say is that the biggest problem I have with him is thatI am simply tired of gritty, violent, brooding, loner Batman. The depiction of him is a doubling down on all that and a totally forgets all the things that make him an insprational character. For example we could do without seeing his origin for the trillionth time and when it was shoehorned into Joker I just rolled my eyes. What happened to Bruce Wayne actually isn't that interesting, what is interesting is what he did after. The whole having something bad happen to you and then trying to turn what happened to you into motivation for making a positive change in the world thing. That's the thing that every armchair psychologist forgets about when they repeat the whole "Batman is just as crazy as the Joker" nonsense. And you know way they are wrong. In the logic of the hyperreality that Batman resides, entrusting the law to vigilantes in silly costumes is a valid approach to law enforcement as seen by characters such as Black Canary and Green Arrow. It's not even tbe weirdest thing about thier universe; Batman's competition for the title of "World's Greatest Detective" includes a talking chimpanzee for Christ's sake. TL;DR Give me a Batman who would enjoy the company of the chatty kid who tells corny jokes. David D. Davidson fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 08:21
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David D. Davidson posted:TL;DR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XjSh3Say18
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Feb 4, 2021 08:41
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Ok, I'm a big time lurker on these forums, but I think I need to say this: The important thing about BvS is just how loving cowardly it is. Giant chunks of what the movie's discussion of superheroes is about is the damage superheroes can do. The 'street-level' opening of Superman Vs Zod, Batman's entire motivation regarding Superman and the potential horrors someone like that could inflict knowingly or otherwise. And that's a totally valid thing to talk about! It's something most superhero media just ignores. There was a lot of criticism regarding the extensive damage at the end of MoS, and, around the same time, at the end of Avengers, too. Disney kind of half asses the response: In Age of Ultron (a very bad movie), the end sequence features a lot of 'get people to safety!' stuff. Then Civil War kind of ties itself in knots: ludicrously small death counts from previous films, yet Zemo's motivation is 'my family died because the avengers hosed up!' That's...not much, but there's an engagement with the problem there. And then BvS...completely shits the bed. It's trying to engage with this too, and then the finale features a completely uncomplicated fight against a big mindless monster and several cuts to news anchors assuring everybody that the area they're fighting in currently just happens to be empty right now! So there's no problem! Don't worry about it! That's not an answer, it's not an engagement, it doesn't raise any questions either- it's literally nothing. It's Snyder just completely abandoning some of his central ideas because Batman and Superman are friends now so it doesn't matter. It's one of the worst cop-outs I've seen in a film in a long, long time. Maybe- And I don't trust Snyder enough to actually believe this- but maybe his cut of Justice League re-engages with this and actually does something with it. It seems unlikely- and even if it does, that ending to BvS still stands out as, like I said- cowardly. Don't make a 'realistic' view on superheroes and then do that. Awful, awful, awful.
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Feb 4, 2021 10:22
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thetimebefore posted:Then Civil War kind of ties itself in knots: ludicrously small death counts from previous films, yet Zemo's motivation is 'my family died because the avengers hosed up!' That's...not much, but there's an engagement with the problem there. I've said it before, Civil War's handling of this is actually incredibly clever and on-point. Everyone scoffs at the "ludicrously small death counts", but they're entirely the point of the film. At that point, everyone had been talking over and over again about Metropolis in Man of Steel vs New York in Avengers, some people opining how sanitized and unrealistic Avengers seemed, how there should have been more death, more carnage, etc. Then Civil War comes along and says "You know what? The Avengers aren't just heroes, they're superheroes. So, yeah, they're able to save almost everyone. But almost still isn't enough. Even if ridiculously few people die, people still die, and each and every one of those deaths is impactful and meaningful." Every single major action in that movie is motivated entirely by individual deaths, not casualty lists. Civil War's engagement with the problem is that the problem misses the point entirely.
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Feb 4, 2021 11:35
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Worth noting that the Avenger's culpability in Sokovia is not merely that they failed to save everyone, it's that they precipitated the entire crisis. Even if the story is that "only" X died because the Avengers managed to minimise the damage, it's X died entirely because of their actions, far more than X could have died, and lots and lots of people were made homeless anyway.
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Feb 4, 2021 12:33
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Phylodox posted:Civil War's engagement with the problem is that the problem misses the point entirely. Yeah. I should note that I really don't care that much about the collateral damage argument. It's superheroes, assume they saved them, it's fine, whatever. If a film wants to engage with that narrative it's perfectly valid, of course. Not everyone is going to have the same broad suspension of disbelief and interest in the 'big ideas' of superheroes. Zemo's back story makes sense, to me, of the small death counts. A reminder that even one death is still a tragedy for someone. Snyder loving up one of the big central ideas that badly makes me so much less inclined to trust the idea that Snyder has really thought through any other aspect of these films, or that the Snyder cut is going to save Justice League. His interviews pretty consistently give me the impression of someone who doesn't think this stuff through, really. I like a lot of the MCU, but when that corporate machine is able to out think you on this sort of thing, you should rethink your approach.
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Feb 4, 2021 13:10
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I don't think you, of all people, have any business doing this
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Feb 4, 2021 14:03
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ReadingArist posted:e: No one here has the power to change these movies.
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Feb 4, 2021 14:13
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Roth posted:I think you misunderstand. 
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Feb 4, 2021 14:13
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Cael posted:Reading The original still exists though. Besides, I wasn't the person arguing they shouldn't change.
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Feb 4, 2021 14:14
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Arist posted:Weird, I thought this Superman was supposed to be inspirational and idealistic? Camus, possibly. in acknowledging the impossibility of his punishment, Sisyphus is freed to accept his fate and find contentment in this particular metaphor superhero Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the hill not for praise, plaudits or other gratification (cynical, mercenary) but because it is the right thing to do regardless of cost (idealistic, noble). heroism is about doing what's right, not what you can get out of it in other words: a good deed is its own reward
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Feb 4, 2021 14:56
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Arist posted:I don't think you, of all people, have any business doing this And I don't think someone who says this Arist posted:I think it's really gross that people in here are so selfish that they'd trade the ability for children to see their favorite character for a couple of F-bombs and some lovely gore. gently caress that noise. has any business complaining about how snide this thread is.
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Feb 4, 2021 14:56
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That's not snide, it's just brusque and rude, because the arguments presented were legitimate pet peeves of mine. My complaint was founded in people coming in here and ever-so-slightly mocking people post after post. But now we're getting into arguing word definitions and I'm outta this.
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Feb 4, 2021 15:03
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Lt. Danger posted:Camus, possibly. in acknowledging the impossibility of his punishment, Sisyphus is freed to accept his fate and find contentment I couldn't agree more with this. Superman isn't Superman because of the accolades or fame, he's Superman because he believes in doing good for goodness sake. That he keeps doing superheroics despite it being difficult and at times (usually) unrewarding just further highlights the heroic qualities of the character. This is inspiring to a lot of people. Despite the struggles and setbacks, he still goes out and does his best to help. I've heard plenty stories from folks who say that the Superman in Man of Steel is the first time they found the character relatable and inspirational, people who weren't fans who suddenly saw the appeal in the character. Hell, I know of several people who credit Man of Steel for still being alive today, because it pulled them out of a suicidal depression. That's a pretty powerful message of hope right there if you ask me.
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Feb 4, 2021 15:10
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Lt. Danger posted:Camus, possibly. in acknowledging the impossibility of his punishment, Sisyphus is freed to accept his fate and find contentment
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Feb 4, 2021 15:17
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Out of all the people here I think Artist is the biggest rear end in a top hat. People offer some good, detailed thoughts on MoS and BvS and the Artist comes in acting like a 90s parent, "think about the children", pearl clutching overbearing rear end in a top hat. This thread is impossible to take my eyes off and I am always grossed out by Artist. You think it's your way or the highway, you do not want other interpretations, bad or good, you just want 1 singular vision of how things should be. You're so close minded. You're so basic. Simple. I just had to get this out there. And I know Artist won't change. They don't give a gently caress about anyone else unless you agree with them. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 4, 2021 15:48
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That is really not a helpful post.
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Feb 4, 2021 15:51
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