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Looking forward to this one. And that's a great looking OP, teagone.
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May 17, 2017 22:33
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BiggestOrangeTree posted:That'll be tough to fit in with the scene in BvS where Batman tries to look her up. He just didn't know the right search terms. Nobody claimed he was the world's greatest detective.
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May 18, 2017 23:13
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I really enjoyed this, but, man, Zack Snyder really set the bar for massive CGI demigod rumbles. Like the last two Captain America movies, the hero taking apart faceless fascists is a blast, but the action goes to hell when it gets too big.
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Jun 3, 2017 16:41
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farraday posted:I watched it with mys sister, she felt the blatant change of Greek mythology to be more judeo-christian was especially egregious, neither of us were a fan of the pointlessness of the framing device. I was happy to forgive Zeus and Ares being given a god-and-the-devil bent to make it more approachable, given that they had the guts to make them actual gods, be responsible for the creation of mankind, etc., as compared to Thor's cop out with the Norse gods just being super-science aliens. I wonder if confirmed-Christian Superman is going to have any questions about that when he inevitably returns from the dead.
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Jun 3, 2017 17:23
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Neo Rasa posted:This is what they are in the comics. I'm talking about movies.
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Jun 3, 2017 17:33
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DC Murderverse posted:I will say that the end where Ares dying makes the war magically end did not come off as poorly as I expected from reading the spoilers before the movie. Taking place about a week from Armistice Day was the right call, but I still definitely have questions about what happened in this world in Germany post-war that still leads to WWII. Yeah. The plot is that they're trying to stop Ares's pawn from stopping the armistice. The implication, including things like Ares clothing himself in shrapnel, is that he's as much the embodiment of the war as the creator of it.
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Jun 3, 2017 23:07
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It never seriously occurred to me that Ares would be anyone but David Thewlis, from almost the moment he appeared, since he was over-cast for the role otherwise. It's like spotting the murderer on Law and Order.
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Jun 4, 2017 18:27
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Ares is blatantly depicted as a fallen angel, whispering into men's hearts to inflame their worst impulses. The movie isn't exclusively using Judeo-Christian imagery, but it's not ignorant of it.got any sevens posted:Well, first time I saw him was his minor cameo in Lebowski... This isn't that sort of movie and his role wasn't that sort of role.
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Jun 4, 2017 21:14
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Brainiac Five posted:The traditional Greek understanding of Ares was as a force driving humanity towards barbarism and violence, and it's far more of an eisegesis to read him as a fallen angel than as an Olympian god. I was referring to the sequence in the movie where he's explicitly struck down from the heavens and falls to Earth.
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Jun 4, 2017 21:20
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Brainiac Five posted:That's kind of a weak connection, because it's not connected with any change in his status. He's a god before and a god after, and the implication is that he's destroyed the heavens, since he killed the rest of the gods. He's shown being struck down and falling to Earth, at which point he loses his helmet, his face as a god, and shows his human face. He then stops acting openly as a god and switches to secretly corrupting men by tempting them with power.
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Jun 4, 2017 21:24
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Brainiac Five posted:The mask of divinity isn't presented as a thing he's lost at any point. Lucifer is still a godlike being, so I'm not sure why you think this is important.
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Jun 4, 2017 21:31
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Brainiac Five posted:I mean, this entire line of argumentation tells us that Journey to the West is a Christian story That would be a weird result for this line of argument because I'm not even saying Wonder Woman is a "Christian story."
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Jun 4, 2017 21:39
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Brainiac Five posted:Okay, so let's amend that to the precise terminology that will allow you to engage with the question: Is the symbolism of the Monkey King being tossed down from the heavens after fighting the gods Christian? I'm not familiar with Journey to the West, so I don't know. Is there a popular film adaptation that depicts him on-screen floating before god, then literally plummeting to Earth, stripped of his full godly glory?
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Jun 4, 2017 21:44
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Brainiac Five posted:A key part of the original novel does depict him getting thrown down to Earth and sealed in a pile of rocks. So, no.
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Jun 4, 2017 21:53
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Brainiac Five posted:Please elaborate, I can't tell if you're saying "no, it's not Christian" for an unexplained reason, or if you're saying "no, you didn't agree with my exact wording, therefore it's not Christian", or what. I didn't want to go into detail because it seems stupid to argue about a work I'm not familiar with, but if you insist, I guess we can. I asked if specific imagery had been deployed in the work you mentioned, and the implication of your comment was that, no, that specific imagery hadn't been used, and you instead described broader, less specifically similar imagery that had. Was Monkey thrown down by the creator of mankind? Is Monkey shown as a god when in heaven? Is Monkey a deceiver, corrupting man through his own worst impulses?
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Jun 4, 2017 22:04
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Brainiac Five posted:Since Ares doesn't "corrupt" anyone… There's literally a scene of him walking, hidden, as he whispers schemes for power in someone's ear.
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Jun 4, 2017 22:12
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Brainiac Five posted:The entire point of the revelation is that he only offers ideas and the person has to act on them. There's no moral degeneration (and this is why Ludendorff was used as a character) involved. Indeed, if your version of the movie were the case, there would be no ambiguity because humanity would be free from war after Ares had died. So your argument now rests on it being inconsistent with Christian imagery to present Satan as encouraging man's own worst impulses. You may want to reconsider the path that led you here.
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Jun 4, 2017 22:17
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Brainiac Five posted:No, I am saying that there's no "encouraging humanity's worst impulses" going on, because the entire point of the movie is that Ares doesn't have to do that, indeed he explicitly encourages their best impulses, like peacemaking, because he's convinced humanity is inherently brutal and violent and will refuse goodness when it is offered. If he were, in fact, actively encouraging them to do evil, there would be no ambiguity in the final parts of the movie, Dr. Poison would be purely a victim of external control and we would have no sympathy to Diana's desire to kill her, and (since Ares would clearly have to constantly push evil) the movie would end with humanity free from the desire to do violence. There's literally a scene of him walking, hidden, as he whispers schemes for power in someone's ear. He encourages humanity's worst impulses, but he doesn't brainwash people into acting on them. He says, if you want to kill thousands or millions, here's how you could do it. But he doesn't make them do it. This is encouragement and seduction into power. But humanity still bears responsibility for acting on it. This is extremely clear in the movie. I would have thought overly so, being represented both visually and multiple times in dialog, but I guess this conversation is why they have to do stuff like that.
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Jun 4, 2017 22:27
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Brainiac Five posted:So, your entire position is that Ares is simultaneously responsible and not responsible for war. Quite unassailable, quite stupid. Ares and humanity share responsibility. It is in the nature of encouraging that you are responsible if what you encouraged comes to pass. It is in the nature of being encouraged that you are still responsible for your own actions. Even if this moral proposition was unfamiliar to you, despite it being the sort of thing commonly taught to children, the movie explains it. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 22:35
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Brainiac Five posted:There is indeed nothing to suggest he did anything but put plans for military action and chemical formulas into people's heads Yes, and this encouraged the continuation of the war. The method by which he encouraged the continuation of the war was to provide a means to do so to precisely the right people.
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Jun 4, 2017 22:48
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Brainiac Five posted:So, in other words, we agree but you're too much of an rear end in a top hat to admit to that. I guess you'll insist that sneering about how I have an infantile grasp of morality was actually a kindly thing to do or something. Brainiac Five posted:Quite unassailable, quite stupid. 
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Jun 4, 2017 22:52
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Brainiac Five posted:Did I say there was anything wrong with being an rear end in a top hat? 
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Jun 4, 2017 22:59
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Brainiac Five posted:Well, if you want to insist that you were victimized by my hideously evil posting, that's your decision to make. Brainiac Five posted:So, in other words, we agree but you're too much of an rear end in a top hat to admit to that. I guess you'll insist that sneering about how I have an infantile grasp of morality was actually a kindly thing to do or something. 
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Jun 4, 2017 23:02
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Brainiac Five posted:People learned to speak English without knowing how to live by the clock, and that kind of Sapir-Whorfianism is pretty heavily disproven. Yeah, I just took it to mean that she didn't know why you'd wear something on your wrist to tell you where you needed to be. It's of a piece with her interpreting Etta Candy's job as slavery. She can't think much of how modern Americans and the like live their lives.
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Jun 5, 2017 04:23
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DC Murderverse posted:yeah he spends a good part of the movie literally not being superman because he'd rather be with Lois, the self-doubt is there. And we see this in Batman v Superman as well. But the thing that I find more compelling about Snyder's Superman is his doubts about what he can even do to help the world, how he can turn being a very strong man into being someone who can change the world. Apart from destroying otherworldly threats, that is. Less the desire to just live a normal life stuff.
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Jun 5, 2017 04:45
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Maxwell Lord posted:Has he really changed the world, though? Like in the context of the DC movies, for the "present day" to be recognizable, it's still going to be a capitalist-dominated world with corrupt billionaires and dysfunctional governments and international terrorism and all that. Throughout BvS he's still mostly doing "rescue" operations, saving people from bad things that have happened, which is good, but he's not shaking the fundamental pillars of power. Even Luthor is just one guy, when he's put in jail at the end that's not the end of Silicon Valley douchebags. That's exactly what I'm talking about. He wants to help, but even if he just rescues a family from drowning, he's concerned how awe inspiring that must be for the family (the shot of him eclipsing the son), and he gets poo poo from the government. There's oil platforms and factories collapsing in flames, the workers trapped inside. The poor in a nearby city are being terrorized with the cooperation of the police and the newspapers don't care, even one run by a relatively good man like Perry White. But these aren't problems that can be solved by punching someone into orbit. Batman is a bad guy, but he only exists because the system supports him. DC Murderverse posted:It's the difference between "should I sacrifice my own happiness to do the right thing?" and "is what i am doing even the right thing?" Yeah. Nothing against the former, but it's already well explored in superhero movies.
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Jun 5, 2017 04:57
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Maxwell Lord posted:But that's the thing- if that's the conflict, then it's completely unresolved. Superman does not defeat capitalism in BvS, and he likely never will as long as WB wants to make superhero movies- but then, neither does the film say he CAN'T destroy the corrupt world order, he just gets sidetracked saving everyone from a giant alien monster. True, it's unresolved. But it's a franchise, and to me it's the more interesting ongoing problem, that's worth some difficulty in resolving, than the buildup to some big bad (though ideally they'll both be interrelated with Superman's inevitable resurrection). If we get through his resurrection in Justice League and, more importantly, Man of Steel 2 without it going somewhere I'll be disappointed then. DC Murderverse posted:Interestingly, the MCU has stayed away from that particular trope, probably for the benefit of everyone who was sick of it. It's kinda the plot of Thor 2, and you see some of it in Iron Man 3 with Tony's suits taking over his life. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Jun 5, 2017 |
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Jun 5, 2017 05:18
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Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd.Maxwell Lord posted:Well, I mean, if we take the end point of what we all want is the destruction of the capitalist order and the abolition of want and poverty worldwide... I mean it's POSSIBLE they could get away with that but I'm not convinced that's the direction the DCCU is going. I don't disagree, I'm just not willing to condemn it until it happens. Well, what I would say is that I do think that's the direction the DCCU is going if we just look at the movies, but I'd agree I don't necessarily expect WB to actually have it happen. Particularly if Snyder completely leaves the franchise, though I could see George Miller successfully picking up the ball as far as that goes.
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Jun 5, 2017 05:29
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Bill Dungsroman posted:Putting aside whether it is or not (it's not), suffering through goons rehashing the same arguments about it and gushing over it in every thread is well past its use by date. Paragraph one: complaining about people talking about another WB/DC film. Paragraph two: primarily talking about Wonder Woman as it relates to other WB/DC films.
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Jun 5, 2017 18:55
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Panfilo posted:Why did Zeus plop that island down in the Mediterranean where countless cultures would inevitably blunder onto it via sea trade routes? As we're told a little earlier, Diana growing in power will make her easier for Ares to find. So, right after she does that big energy blast, Ares's war finds the island. It's not the sort of place you just stumble upon.
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Jun 6, 2017 00:57
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Hollismason posted:You literally see her do that in the WW film. Like did you watch the film by standing in the lobby? I think the idea is that while, yes, obviously she can fly in the right circumstances, she isn't a superhero with "flight" as one of her standard superpowers that she uses all the time, like with Superman. At the end of the movie, she's leaping, not just lifting off in flight. I wouldn't expect to see her causally levitating in Justice League.
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Jun 6, 2017 20:36
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MariusLecter posted:One thing from the comics i hope makes some translation into future dc movies is how in a life or death fight, Wonder Woman would not only wreck Superman but kill him quick fast and in a hurry cause shes a capital W Warrior. I feel like Superman dying once in the current continuity is enough.
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Jun 8, 2017 05:41
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teagone posted:I've mentioned this before, but I thought it's pretty clear the reason the German soldier and the Native American dude hugged it out at the end was because they both had just seen some batshit insane, fire and brimstone poo poo with actual gods battling out before them. They were on death's doorstep. Diana saved them all, and they survived. At that point they weren't a German soldier, or a merc for hire in the midst of a war anymore. They were just mere mortals, alive and well. What else can you do but open your arms to another human being in that kind of situation? It's sending this message that in the end, love and compassion conquers war and violence. I agree, though I feel like the movie could have illustrated this more clearly. Unless I'm misremembering, we don't really get a good picture of how the ordinary soldiers experience the fight while it's going on. It's one of the things that puts it a step down for me from Snyder's Superman movies, or the most recent American Godzilla. A lot of the fight seems to take place in this grey zone, like the fight at the end of the most recent Fantastic Four.
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Jun 11, 2017 21:23
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Davros1 posted:It's competently put together, but when you've seen, say, Jackie Chan films that feature action sequences that appear more superhuman than a film about superhumans, the director is doing something wrong. Either that, or Man of Steel and BvS are about humanizing the superhuman, and apparently wildly successful at it.
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Jun 12, 2017 21:42
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K. Waste posted:I like how Tony Zhou made one video essay contrasting Hong Kong and U.S. action cinema - which didn't even reference Snyder at all - but now it's just a feather in the cap 'explaining why something is bad,' rather than clarifying what one has to do with the other. Yeah. One of the key points in that video is about how Jackie Chan keeps action and reaction in the same shot. Which have made previous instances of people trying to apply that video to Snyder as criticism pretty funny, considering the guy's love for long tracking shots of continuous action.
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Jun 12, 2017 21:53
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ShineDog posted:And of course when it's a slow motion scene they will take actual actions to propel themselves so it looks visually inconsistent. I don't think we've ever seen a Kryptonian in slow motion in the DCEU.
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Jun 15, 2017 00:50
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Great stuff. If there's slow motion in this I didn't spot it, though. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jun 15, 2017 |
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Jun 15, 2017 02:54
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Neo Rasa posted:Some very brief snippets of noted Kryptonian Jor El in slow motion. When? I didn't spot any when I watched it. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jun 15, 2017 |
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Jun 15, 2017 03:01
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Neo Rasa posted:Some very brief snippets of noted Kryptonian Jor El in slow motion. So just to confirm, this was, like, some weird goof to get me to watch the opening of Man of Steel a couple of times? Not that I'm complaining, I love that sequence.
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Jun 16, 2017 17:46
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Toady posted:The confusion here is that Steve Trevor is the Christ stand-in. Sent from Heaven to Diana's world, he teaches Diana that mankind is a fallen creation and that it's not about what they deserve but what they believe: they may be born sinners, but they'll be saved if they accept Christ. Hmm, missed that scene. Will have to keep an eye out on a rewatch.
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Jun 19, 2017 19:24
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