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BigglesSWE posted:Oh we’re doing the condescending “you just don’t get it” now do we? Name a single Batman film where he doesn't kill or guy or at least instigates an event that very directly leads to someone's death
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Jan 10, 2021 22:36
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BigglesSWE posted:... This is your real consternation with the film, but Batman has and always will kill - especially when he says he doesn't. Murder has a specific definition, so it would help with communication to be accurate in your writing. Schwarzwald posted:... It's disappointing how the film continues the WW1 tradition of relegating big ideas like Good, Evil, Truth & Lies from the realm of the mythological to the most banal of reactionary politics. Jenkins' Wonder Woman, who has access to absolute truth and discovers that she's a demigod, spends her time preventing accidents and stopping store robberies. WW84 is the embodiment of Obama pontificating on how the internet is THE greatest threat to U.S. democracy. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 22:46
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multijoe posted:Name a single Batman film where he doesn't kill or guy or at least instigates an event that very directly leads to someone's death In The Dark Knight, he causes the death of Harvey Dent by a fall as he’s stopping him from murdering Gordon’s son. He also takes the blame for murders he did not commit, and the movie makes a point to showcase how this causes significant consequences for his legacy. Now, to you that might be the same as him mowing down a dozen goons in his quest for some loot in car (which he no doubt could’ve taken by other means, which we know BECAUSE HE DID LATER IN THE SAME GODDAMN MOVIE) but to me, there optics are sliiiiiiiighly different. Regardless your argument is void because nowhere did I point to other movies to explain why BvS sucks. BvS sucks on it’s own legs.
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Jan 10, 2021 22:50
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BigglesSWE posted:In The Dark Knight, he causes the death of Harvey Dent by a fall as he’s stopping him from murdering Gordon’s son. He also takes the blame for murders he did not commit, and the movie makes a point to showcase how this causes significant consequences for his legacy. You said it it's a bad take on the character when it has been a consistent character trait throughout every movie Batman that when the chips are down (or just when he's pissed off enough) he'll still kill people. Anything you could say about BvS in that respect you could say about Batman Returns or Batman begins, the novel take in BvS is that he has has stopped making excuses for it
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Jan 10, 2021 23:01
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BigglesSWE posted:In The Dark Knight, he causes the death of Harvey Dent by a fall as he’s stopping him from murdering Gordon’s son. He also takes the blame for murders he did not commit, and the movie makes a point to showcase how this causes significant consequences for his legacy. The film that gets closest to how Nolan really feels about Batman is Batman Begins, where he kills dozens, if not hundreds of people who are committed to the annihilation of Gotham. Thanks to nerd backlash, we got the incoherent morality of The Dark Knight where he abruptly back pedals on the iconic "... I don't have to save you", line of the previous film by saving another supervillain who is also committed to the destruction of Gotham. https://youtu.be/0xkh982zFm8?t=2099 And even then, as you've noted, Batman can't stop killing. He even performs the rare & superheroic double reverse course in The Dark Knight Rises when he uses lethal weaponry on and successfully kills Talia. Where was the indignation over how Nolan cynically saved Ledger's Joker for another film? Oh right, there was none, because that didn't go against nerd orthodoxy. BigglesSWE posted:... That's not how that works. In addition to his compounding existential terror of Superman's very presence, Batman has no assurance that he will be able to get the God-killing weapon at a later time, especially considering the converse Monday Morning Quarterbacking point-of-view of Lex Jr. trying to make it not too easy but also not too hard for Batman to steal it from LexCorp central. Snyder foreshadows this in the celebration of the fake sword of Alexander the Great encased in a glass case that cut the Gordian Knot.    (Wonder Woman absolutely kills it in that dress by the way) The film later explicitly reinforces how fanatical Batman is to the cause when he remarks that murdering Superman might be the only thing of his legacy worth remembering, and implicitly in the imagery of carrying Superman as his cross to bear for the salvation of humanity.    KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 10, 2021 23:07
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Personally, as someone who prefers works critical of Batman or even casting him as a villain, I still like the concept of him having an arbitrary no-kill rule to justify him dressing up in leather/rubber/spandex and beating the poo poo out of desperate/mentally ill people. I feel like theres a lot of incoherent ideology you can hook onto that & tear down. That said I also dont really care either way about him being a murderer. Batman sucks, he's a broken and terrible person who gets by on having a cool costume and brooding. Seems like a conversation fit for the Snyder thread, though.
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Jan 10, 2021 23:57
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Batman kills because of Super 9/11, that's why he sounds so much like Cheney when he's justifying himself to Alfred. Batman as a character is also way more bloodthirsty than his image with fans. Its a tension that the film explores, reaching the same conclusion that the fanboy types do, that the grimdark version should be redeemed by hope, and that's why Batman and Superman are more than just an obvious crossover. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 01:47
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BigglesSWE posted:Oh we’re doing the condescending “you just don’t get it” now do we? I not trying to be condescending and there’s not really much to “get.” Batman’s issues aren’t subtext, they’re text. Bruce Wayne : We're criminals, Alfred. We've always been criminals. Nothing's changed. Alfred : Oh, yes it has, sir. 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. Alfred is literally telling the audience why Batman is cruel. He’s been fighting a losing battle against crime for decades and all of his sacrifice is ultimately meaningless if god comes from the heavens and destroys the world anyway. He feels powerless and that fills him with rage and turns him, once a good man (a man with a code, however warped), cruel. Why does Batman want to kill Superman? Because he can’t be sure of Superman’s intentions and he is an existential threat. Bruce Wayne: Count the dead: thousands of people. What’s next? Millions? He has the power to wipe out the entire human race, and if we believe there’s even a one percent chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty. This is, famously, the Cheney Doctrine. Batman is like many liberals driven mad by 9-11 who became fixated on the idea that terrorists were out to destroy western civilization and no cost was too high to prevent that. Why does Batman not kill Luther at the end? Well, even in the context of BvS Batman isn’t a murderer. He will kill people (like he’s done in other movies) when necessary, like rescuing a hostage, but he won’t shoot a prisoner in the head or snap their neck. The real question is why doesn’t he brand him? Because through Superman’s sacrifice Batman has his faith in humanity re-affirmed. Batman, when fighting Superman: You’re not brave. Men are brave. You say you want to help people, but you can't experience their pain...their mortality. It's time you learned what it means to be a man! To this version of Batman, consumed with his own fear and feelings of impotence, humanity is defined by pain and fear, and to be a man is to be brave in the face of that fear. Batman, at Superman’s funeral: 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. Batman now believes that men are good. Fighting and death and betrayal aren’t inherent to humanity, they are simply things men do, and they can choose to do better. He now believes that humanity is worth saving instead of merely punishing. He is not quite so cruel as he was at the start. There’s a lot more in there but, again, the characters literally state their motivations. Whether you think this version is “not my Batman” is another matter, but there’s nothing incoherent about it. The movie has it’s issues with editing but this complaint seems very weird to me. YOLOsubmarine fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 02:42
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BigglesSWE posted:The Bat of Gotham lets him live because he’s a big baddie that’s meant to be used in future movies. Or not. Oops. So he should have... killed someone who was already imprisoned, without trial? I’m pretty sure that’s a war crime.
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Jan 11, 2021 03:24
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Pirate Jet posted:So he should have... killed someone who was already imprisoned, without trial? I’m pretty sure that’s a war crime. Yeah, he's back to dealing with crazy people in his traditional manner: backwards penal psychiatric practices. Like he's not perfect because he saw space Jesus, he's just a hosed up human instead of a monster. A not hosed up human would probably stop dressing like a bat so that's about where you want Batman.
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Jan 11, 2021 03:28
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KVeezy3 posted:This is your real consternation with the film, but Batman has and always will kill - especially when he says he doesn't. Murder has a specific definition, so it would help with communication to be accurate in your writing. Lol the siren call went out and Kveezy and others is in full on Snyder chat war mode. Honestly the worst conversation on this site.
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Jan 11, 2021 06:04
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Shageletic posted:Lol the siren call went out and Kveezy and others is in full on Snyder chat war mode. I too hate having discussions and disagreements on a discussion forum.
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Jan 11, 2021 06:07
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Shageletic posted:Honestly the worst conversation on this site. is this a signature?
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Jan 11, 2021 06:16
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You have like 10 threads to talk about the worst character in comics and the cool reasons he kills or whatever the gently caress. I just wanna talk more about those golf pants
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Jan 11, 2021 06:19
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multijoe posted:Early descriptions of the film said Wonder Woman was going to come into conflict with the USSR which after several script revisions seems to have been shrunk down into the nuclear war plotline, but I'm guessing 1984 was originally going to refer to ~soviety totalitariansm~ or somesuch Would have been hilarious to have Wonder Woman on the same side as the mujaheddin.
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Jan 11, 2021 07:31
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Prince Myshkin posted:Would have been hilarious to have Wonder Woman on the same side as the mujaheddin. People were making the Rambo III jokes for quite a while.
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Jan 11, 2021 08:45
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Lol wtf was up with the constant going back to that praying Mujahideen dude? Was that part of the cast iff plot? This movie was WEIRD when it came to arabs
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Jan 11, 2021 09:28
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Shageletic posted:You have like 10 threads to talk about the worst character in comics and the cool reasons he kills or whatever the gently caress. "bvs sucks" "not really" "GOSH can't I go anywhere without you OBSESSIVE SNYDERBROS taking over every conversation??"
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Jan 11, 2021 10:52
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Shageletic posted:Lol the siren call went out and Kveezy and others is in full on Snyder chat war mode. I didn't think it would be controversial to discuss and compare BvS's themes and characterizations, considering Wonder Woman is in it. Regardless, the topic of justified killing by a superhero is highly relevant to both Wonder Woman films. Although I couldn't care less about franchise continuity and how different Wonder Woman was in BvS vs Jenkins' films, there remains a marked shift in characterization just between Jenkins' films. She had no qualms with killing Germans in WW1, and that was just on her way to kill Ares. In WW2, she's deeply ambivalent about doing the same to Lord, despite her intimate knowledge of Dolos and his exponential threat in the new era of globalization (See the film's depiction of a stock market chart plummeting to signify total catastrophe). KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jan 11, 2021 |
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Jan 11, 2021 13:56
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I think it's fair to discuss how Superhero movies address the killing issue given that it's largely unavoidable and isn't something the genre has really grappled with yet beyond some lip service about Scarlett Witch being sad that one time (and is then completely forgotten about) and of course the Batman rule.
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Jan 11, 2021 14:42
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McSpanky posted:"bvs sucks" Totally normal post. KVeezy3 posted:I didn't think it would be controversial to discuss and compare BvS's themes and characterizations, considering Wonder Woman is in it. Thats a fair point. Its also a fair point to mention this movie isn't coherent enough to have a firm take on why Diana turns into the superhero movie version of 4kidsTV other than Jenkins, really, really trying to market this as a movie to bring your kids too. Which is fairly ironic bc kids love violence. Its just a complete misreading of her audience, genre, decade, world, reality, etc
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Jan 11, 2021 14:58
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It's still lmao that the whole 'totally-not-Donald Trump redemption story' angle managed to age even more poorly than it started out.
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Jan 11, 2021 15:22
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's still lmao that the whole 'totally-not-Donald Trump redemption story' angle managed to age even more poorly than it started out. hey man, the movie had a solid 3 weeks before that happened. Timeless.
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Jan 11, 2021 18:55
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Shageletic posted:Totally normal post. Yeah, for someone who posts in cineD it really is. You might reasonably assume that if you ignore this argument, it goes away. It doesn't. The idea that people might like a movie that nerd culture YouTube didn't has historically been completely alien and evidently deeply offensive to a rough majority of goons who wander in here.
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Jan 12, 2021 04:58
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Stop stopping me from talking about the golf pants!!
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Jan 12, 2021 19:38
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Like why? And how????
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Jan 12, 2021 19:41
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Shageletic posted:… My thought here is that, although Diana still consider herself a protector of humanity, the traumatic ending of WW1 has altered that relationship in specific ways. At the same time that she discovers she’s an unimaginably powerful demi-god, there’s a devastating loss. Her journey parallels humanity’s collapse of meaning following World War 1, which was a stark rejection of the Enlightenment’s vivid rendering of the inevitable human mastery of mind & nature Through the diabolically evil figure of Ares, WW1 Diana was able to imagine a better world, one worth fighting & killing for. For producing a horrific global conflict that took her true love, Diana has decided to no longer interfere too much with humanity’s natural trajectory. No longer interested in changing the world, she’s now accepted the truth of humanity. And the truth is beautiful. In contrast, WW2 Diana could prevent annihilation by killing Lord, but she decides to test humanity. So she performs her heroic duty of properly informing them of the stakes at hand. Humanity got themselves to this point, and if they’re worth anything, they can turn in their Porsches and get themselves out.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:19
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KVeezy3 posted:My thought here is that, although Diana still consider herself a protector of humanity, the traumatic ending of WW1 has altered that relationship in specific ways. At the same time that she discovers she’s an unimaginably powerful demi-god, there’s a devastating loss. Her journey parallels humanity’s collapse of meaning following World War 1, which was a stark rejection of the Enlightenment’s vivid rendering of the inevitable human mastery of mind & nature It doesn't seem she could beat Lord though, in the climax she's visibly being forced back into a corner by ... magical air(?). And her speech is delivered more as a plea than a proclamation, everything about the scene says she's on the ropes and she's being forced to use guile to defeat him rather than being a deliberate moral decision to test humanity.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:31
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KVeezy3 posted:My thought here is that, although Diana still consider herself a protector of humanity, the traumatic ending of WW1 has altered that relationship in specific ways. At the same time that she discovers she’s an unimaginably powerful demi-god, there’s a devastating loss. Her journey parallels humanity’s collapse of meaning following World War 1, which was a stark rejection of the Enlightenment’s vivid rendering of the inevitable human mastery of mind & nature You're pulling for a diagetic rationale behind the decision? Well ok. Did the movie actually show a sufficiently traumatized Diana to essentially change her assumed role in the first movie from a warrior to a pacifist (unless you rip off a criminal front apparently). Did the movie show any internal machinations behind Diana's actions other than not having dated in 70 years and a reasonably justifiable suspicion in hindsight of oil dudes wanting to subsidize your museum. Your Diana sounds interesting. Don't know what it has with WW84 Diana, whose biggest test was to not rape a dude. And failed it?
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Jan 12, 2021 22:07
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multijoe posted:It doesn't seem she could beat Lord though, in the climax she's visibly being forced back into a corner by ... magical air(?). And her speech is delivered more as a plea than a proclamation, everything about the scene says she's on the ropes and she's being forced to use guile to defeat him rather than being a deliberate moral decision to test humanity. I thought the lasso manipulates you into obeying? She mass brainwashed the world when she used it on Lord and dictated her terms over the air. Her self righteousness from the first movie led to its natural conclusion where she’s still self righteous but now has a way of forcing the world to listen after failing to do so after her ideological loss to Ares.
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Jan 12, 2021 22:15
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ruddiger posted:I thought the lasso manipulates you into obeying? She mass brainwashed the world when she used it on Lord and dictated her terms over the air. Her self righteousness from the first movie led to its natural conclusion where she’s still self righteous but now has a way of forcing the world to listen after failing to do so after her ideological loss to Ares. I don't think it's ever set up as a mind control thing, it traditionally just forces people to tell the truth. I guess you could read its new power in WW84 as imposing her will on the world rather than just communicating with them but there's nothing prior that sets that up and the scene (to me at least) reads more as an impassioned plea than a command or imposition.
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Jan 12, 2021 22:26
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The lasso is only supposed to make you tell the truth. The movie has introduces the idea that it also shows you the truth, but it… doesn’t? It just tells you historical accounts of things that happened, which isn’t really the same idea.
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Jan 12, 2021 22:31
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gregday posted:The lasso is only supposed to make you tell the truth. The movie has introduces the idea that it also shows you the truth, but it… doesn’t? It just tells you historical accounts of things that happened, which isn’t really the same idea. The idea of truth is a tricky one for those who don't really have beliefs.
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Jan 13, 2021 05:07
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On paper, the idea behind using the lasso at the end is that everything does in fact take place in a complete dream-world, and this is the point where Diana 'wakes everyone up' from the collective illusion. I imagine that, in earlier drafts of the script, she simultaneously erases everyone's memory to maintain continuity with the other films.
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Jan 13, 2021 05:56
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Ah, the Sonic 2006 of superhero movies.
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Jan 13, 2021 07:52
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multijoe posted:It doesn't seem she could beat Lord though, in the climax she's visibly being forced back into a corner by ... magical air(?). And her speech is delivered more as a plea than a proclamation, everything about the scene says she's on the ropes and she's being forced to use guile to defeat him rather than being a deliberate moral decision to test humanity. By “Test”, I don’t mean that Diana sees her intervention here as a cold and stern teacher - she genuinely wants humanity to make the right decision, and she wants to believe in them again. Of course we'll have to see what she's going to do with this newfound faith (Not that I'm optimistic). In the smaller context: Diana was able to communicate with the world by getting a solid lasso on Lord. Instead of spending the last few moments pleading to humanity, she could have easily pulled him to her and beaten his brains in. In the broader context: Diana is very careful with what she wields while superhero-ing to convey a specific message. Yes, her entire body is a lethal weapon, but she’s restrained herself from punching, lassoing, or tiara-ing anyone to death. With annihilation at hand, Diana brought no offensive tools, but took the time to go back to her crib and pick up the golden armor - a defensive tool. The symbolic act of donning the golden armor is to repeat the savior legend of her people, by giving humanity a chance at salvation against their own implacable desires. Shageletic posted:You're pulling for a diagetic rationale behind the decision? Well ok. I’m not saying that Diana is a great or even a good person, but that what I’ve written is how I think she perceives the events that have unfolded so far, and that that would remain the same even if Jenkins came out and said what you think happened with regards to ulterior motives. I wouldn’t characterize WW2 Diana as a pacifist, but something much dumber which involves adhering to a Batman-esque 'No Killing Rule' in the face of global annihilation (Effectively punishing all life, not just humanity). The film could have easily avoided this friction altogether, but it went out of its way to assert that our heroes' only two options were to have everyone renounce their wishes or kill Lord. One option required statistical miracle after statistical miracle to occur, while the other is killing one mortal man who is far from innocent. As far as whether the films sufficiently depicted a traumatized person: subjectively, I don’t think it’s ever clear for anybody, as people process trauma in different ways, and objectively, we know that in a very small span of time, she learned that she was lied to her entire life about many important things, is not even allowed to return to paradise (The only home she has ever known) as a consequence of those lies, killed a god (Who is effectively her own family) without the total victory she expected, and that humanity is capable of catastrophic cruelty on its own, which directly leads to the death of her love. I don’t think we can say whether or not she was completely chaste between the two Steves, just that she hasn’t loved anyone else. Certainly, in her civilian identity, she seems to have integrated herself well within the social fabric (Socially well adjusted, an interesting & well paid job, nice pad & clothes). But the true reflection of her trauma is in her super-hero identity since, as far as we know, she has not interfered with any human atrocities or tried to change the world with big ideas since WW1. She has been mostly satisfied with dedicating her demi-god power to ‘Acts of God’ (accidents) and the minor cleaning of a capitalist system’s ugly blemishes. Don't get me wrong, I think this is all quite dumb in both content & form. Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned the superheroine Jessica Jones as having a supervillain who had a similar ability to cause mass chaos as WW2. But there are a couple notable differences: one - her supervillain's power was relatively temporary and localized, and two - Jessica cathartically pulls a triumphant  on her supervillain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHdHJYtEt3Q In summary: WW2 is definitely the most grim-dark film in the DCEU. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 13, 2021 16:39
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Her mass/density and the speed at which she tackles these kids would have killed them. She's as hard as steel and flying at them at the speed of a rocket.
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Feb 1, 2021 17:34
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th3t00t posted:Her mass/density and the speed at which she tackles these kids would have killed them. She's as hard as steel and flying at them at the speed of a rocket. I mean realism in these movies is never really A Thing, but Wonder Woman's motion in any kind of "super powers" moment in this movie looks just atrocious on a basic level. Way worse than the first movie, and most other superhero movies since forever. In some ways it's worse than even 1978 Superman, because that movie at least tried to make it look like Superman was interacting with things in a tactile way, even if it was just jerking Reeves around with bungie cables and superimposing him on backgrounds.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:03
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th3t00t posted:Her mass/density and the speed at which she tackles these kids would have killed them. She's as hard as steel and flying at them at the speed of a rocket. Those kids were playing in the middle of the road while dozens of vehicles were shooting guns and missiles and ramming each other nearby. In a region of the world notorious for sectarian strife and violence. I think their mothers were just trying to prune the family tree of some dummies, and Diana ruined their plan.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:19
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sean10mm posted:I mean realism in these movies is never really A Thing, but Wonder Woman's motion in any kind of "super powers" moment in this movie looks just atrocious on a basic level. Way worse than the first movie, and most other superhero movies since forever.
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Feb 1, 2021 18:38
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