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Lurdiak posted:There's this video game series called Sonic the Hedgehog. You may have heard of it. For 10 years, after Sonic went 3D, I had to hear about how the latest Sonic was "the good one". They got it right this time, guys! And then I'd play it, and it's still be really lovely. Because the people saying it was good just wanted it to be good because they like Sonic as a character and franchise, and his individual games' actual quality was completely secondary to their loyalty to Sonic. Tell us more about that 10 year ordeal of being forced to hear from Sonic The Hedgehog You May Have Heard Of It fans.
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May 28, 2017 22:11
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Yeah I agree on the swiss cheese thing. Using a device to keep track of time throughout the day and being told where to go and what to do by superiors/employees have been part of most civilizations for tens of thousands of years, it's genuinely odd that these concepts were somehow foreign to Diana. Especially since she lives in a martial society which is also a dynastic monarchy where pretty much everyone she'd ever known would have been giving orders or taking orders. The ancient Greeks were also pretty good at keeping time and had several different types of timepieces including water clocks and even alarm clocks, it isn't a modern concept by any stretch. I've only seen the film once during a particularly poor theater experience, so I can't yet discuss the film as clearly as I'd like to, but I remember her being amazed not at the concept of timekeeping but at the notion of Steve carrying around a little device to tell him when to do things.
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Jun 5, 2017 08:47
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Halloween Jack posted:The thing I'm really going to miss in the debate over this film is people saying it was good or bad depending on how much merchandise is in their local department store. That was definitely one of the absolute weirdest features of arguing about movies online over the past couple years, but I don't think it will be part of this particular slapfight. I will miss the long discussions about how many people were killed by the superhero. Wonder Woman kills many people in this movie, and the critics have spoken--they never actually cared about such things.
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Jun 5, 2017 22:45
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Charlz Guybon posted:The canon purists won't complain about that because she's always been presented as the killer among DC's trinity. It's very interesting that Wonder Woman slashing soldiers and chucking them out the window is accepted as heroic, even as she believes they are innocent men under the influence of Ares, while Batman defending himself in his batplane isn't. The society Diana comes from is a bunch of 300-style killers. Diana and Leonidas both leave their fretting mothers to become gods of war. But it's okay because Diana wants to help people...by killing a bunch of other people so she can kill Ares and replace him. The rationalization is the same used by the Spartans, that military violence is an expression of love and justice.
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Jun 5, 2017 23:32
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Steve2911 posted:Also it's world war loving one trench warfare of course she can kill people. This is, of course, nonsense.
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Jun 5, 2017 23:48
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What has become clear with this movie is that people didn't have trouble with Batman killing after all. They simply resented Dawn of Justice for not painting a cheery veneer on the power fantasy. Someone who genuinely wanted to free the troops from the corrupting influence of Ares would do everything in their power to avoid harming them. This movie glorifies her wanton carnage in Snyder-esque slow-motion (remember when people complained about such things?). Diana only sides with Steve because he fought beside her on the beach. If a German had washed up on shore and fought with her against the British, she'd have been running in the opposite direction through No Man's Land (the correct direction, it turns out). There is no morality in this film. Just fighting for the sake of winning.
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Jun 6, 2017 00:04
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Her arm is visibly bleeding after the fight on the beach.
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Jun 7, 2017 06:04
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Some bullets are shown ricocheting off her boots. Obviously, we're meant to assume she's adequately protected by the shield and armor. Given the ending, you may also assume supernatural shenanigans.
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Jun 7, 2017 19:38
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Her powers have been inconsistent for as long as the character has existed. She's vulnerable to cutting and piercing weapons, yet she jumps through glass windows unscathed. So the movie is consistently inconsistent like the comics. It doesn't matter.
Toady fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 22:09
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Something I haven't seen discussed is that, similarly to 300, Diana is the one telling the story. In her depiction, Steve is a "good guy" and the Germans are the "bad guys." Stripping away the biases in her depiction of events, it becomes clear that what makes her so dangerous as the new god of war is her indoctrination by the Amazons, which leads her to rationalize her intervention in human history as a quest for justice and love. Diana is proactive--whoever stands in her way either gets yelled at or cut down. Several times we see her enjoying fighting (in contrast, Superman seems uncomfortable with fighting, and his moments of fun come from flying or being with Lois). Ares operates in the background, having lost much of his power in the fight with Zeus. Likely, he understood this and went along with the plan for replacement. After Diana rejects his vision of a world without war, he activates her divine powers so that war will never end on Earth or anywhere else (in BvS, she proudly proclaims that she's "killed things from other worlds before"). The reveal that Diana is a living weapon turns out to be accurate.
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Jun 18, 2017 19:41
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Diana, whose name is similar to Adonai, initially appears to represent a neo Old Testament war god. As Yahweh and Zeus were storm gods, Diana inherits lightning powers. In the final battle, she embraces the New Testament view that love will save everyone, and she forms an electric cross in the sky, yet her actions are hypocritically full of bloodshed. Her superhero uniform is battle armor. Her link with humanity is a dead man whose imagery she cherishes. She leads humanity in modern-day wars for alleged humanitarian reasons. She shrugs her shoulders and accepts that mankind will do whatever it wants instead of educating humanity through character refinement (Da'at Torah). The film effectively acts as a Jewish critique of Christianity.
Toady fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jun 18, 2017 |
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Jun 18, 2017 21:18
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ungulateman posted:There's not much Christian about Wonder Woman. There's a split second where she's in the sky with her arms apart, but it's much more a 'god gently descending from the heavens' pose than a crucifixion - which makes sense, since she's just obliterated Ares with divine might. 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. His sacrifice is a limited atonement in the tradition of the Calvinists, as saving everyone is "not what we're here to do." Reborn as a Christian, Diana eliminates Magneto with a beam of light from a flying, electrified cross. The clash of her new beliefs with her warrior-like Old Testament behavior represents the critical Jewish perspective of clumsily grafting the New Testament onto the Old Testament to reverse-engineer the old prophecies and prove the new ideology. If Batman is a reformed sinner, Wonder Woman is the Hyper-Calvinist who carries an image of the cross, kills monsters from other worlds (other religions and cultures), and believes only God can intervene to redeem the damned in contrast to her prior belief that people can be changed. Toady fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jun 19, 2017 |
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Jun 19, 2017 19:09
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I don't even know what that means.
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Jun 19, 2017 19:18
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Sir Kodiak posted:Hmm, missed that scene. Will have to keep an eye out on a rewatch. When Diana has a crisis of faith after killing Ludendorff, Steve tells her that mankind is bad, but that she shouldn't think in terms of deserving damnation. It's not her place to deliver rewards and punishments. Her role isn't to drop a tank onto Dr. Poison, nor is it to help her. She adopts a Calvinist position: people are inherently depraved, and God's love will save them if He wills it to.
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Jun 19, 2017 20:04
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Sir Kodiak posted:Where's "if they accept Christ" in this? "It isn't about deserve. It's about what you believe."
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Jun 19, 2017 21:49
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Sir Kodiak posted:Unless I'm misremembering, that was Steve saying that he was willing to sacrifice himself because he believed in love. Which is a totally different thing than "they may be born sinners, but they'll be saved if they accept Christ." The people weren't saved because they believed in Christ, or because they believed anything at all, but because of what Steve and Diana believed in. The line "It isn't about deserve—it's about what you believe" is a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:8-9: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
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Jun 19, 2017 22:13
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Sir Kodiak posted:Diana isn't saved by her beliefs. Steve is explaining his sacrifice as the result of him putting his beliefs into action. There's nothing in Wonder Woman, either the quote or the movie, of one being saved through the possession of faith, as described in Ephesians 2:8-9. Steve is telling her it doesn't matter what people deserve for their actions because mankind is inherently depraved, and the only way to Heaven is through Him ("it's about what you believe"). He confesses "we're all to blame," making his self-sacrifice an act of redemption that teaches Diana that humans don't deserve her protection or wrath. Her worldview is significantly altered: quote:I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their minds. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. A choice each must make for themselves, something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know that only love can truly save the world. The subsequent line that her mission is to stay and fight reveals the conclusion of the film's critique. As the Godkiller, she's no longer invested in the salvation of humans and is itchin' to kill rival gods from other worlds. Toady fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 01:14
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Sir Kodiak posted:How do you get from "it's about what you believe" to "the only way to Heaven is through Him"? Those don't mean the same thing at all. The Bible is not subtle about what you're supposed to believe. It does not advocate that everyone needs to make their own choice about what they believe. I'm not sure what you're confused about. The "it" Steve is referring to is redemption. He tells her it won't come through killing a bad guy but through faith. He demonstrates God's love by accepting mankind's guilt and sacrificing himself (Romans 5:8, John 4:8). Wonder Woman adopts a Calvinist disinterest in evangelizing to these people because they're gonna do what they're gonna do. She wants to go fight other gods.
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Jun 20, 2017 01:46
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Sir Kodiak posted:Nope. He's talking about acting in accordance with your beliefs. You're misunderstanding Diana's statement. She no longer tries to save mankind because she believes no one can help them make that choice. Steve distinguishes between acting for a just reward and acting on beliefs because all of mankind is fallen, and what people deserve doesn't matter. Diana learns the power of love through Steve's sacrifice. These are biblical concepts. She then turns into a flying cross made of god-lightning. People who don't see the Christian imagery are ignoring what's on the screen. Alfred: Everything's changed. Men fall from the sky, the gods hurl thunderbolts, innocents die. That's how it starts, sir. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men... cruel. The key point is that we're watching a criticism. We presume history proceeds as expected and that WWII occurs, and the tenet that love conquers evil will fail. This doesn't concern Wonder Woman because she effectively acts as an indifferent Calvinist. She'll slay gods from other worlds, but she won't try to save mankind because it's not up to her. Chief's people remain displaced. Sameer remains discriminated against. WWII happens. This is in stark contrast to Batman, who very much cares about deserve: Diana Prince: A hundred years ago I walked away from mankind; from a century of horrors... Men made a world where standing together is impossible. Bruce Wayne: Men are still good. We fight, we kill, we betray one another, but we can rebuild. We can do better. We will. We have to. That's the twist in BvS. The indifferent god Luther has been raging against is Wonder Woman.
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Jun 21, 2017 00:37
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