Social Critique in Fiction

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Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

I can't speak for most any Marvel or superhero movie because usually I'll see one that seems promising, say "it's HOW long?!", and then be done with it, but it appears the two big factors in why they're so consistently ideologically incoherent is that 1) they get a lot asset access from the DoD on the condition that they don't cut against the grain of American Exceptionalism as personified in our armed forces and 2) it's just fundamental to the genre at this point. The whole thing kicked off with a movie, Watchmen, that almost everybody missed the point on and it's now spread even into writing rooms as you can see with stuff like Batman movie with Bane where they threw in a weird nuclear side plot because he was too popular with focus groups to be a villain even tho one of the best things about the franchise is having really interesting Dick Tracey villains

Truly refined people enjoy high brow and well-crafted prose such as that found in lunatic commbloc sci-fi writing and Venture Brothers

edit - I'll watch a Nomad Capitan America arc movie if they make one tho

# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 19:34

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 13:32

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

For some mysterious reason, the Communist-backed factions didn't feel like they could trust the "direct line to British intelligence agencies" guy who opposed anything beyond anarchist garbage, and for this he would never forgive them

Don't take it from me tho, Asimov was the ur-cold warrior and still wrote an entire essay mocking it as paranoid nonsense, admittedly largely on the grounds of what a piece of poo poo of a book it actually was to read and analyze

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 02:56

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Raenir Salazar posted:

I don't believe Asimov was particularly a "cold warrior"; a lot of his writings/interviews emphasized the need for the US to cooperate with the USSR and was critical of a lot of US foreign policy esp. regarding Korea, Vietnam, etc. Just because someone wrote most of their work during the cold war I don't think makes them a cold war warrior assuming that's what you meant.

He was an odd bird in this sense, especially compared to a lot of his (insanely psychotic) contemporaries...but I'll reiterate that he gained absolutely nothing by taking Orwell to task in the face of a domestic machine that was determined to valorize his works.

I've read most of his works and all of the Foundation arc (DO NOT READ THE 1980'S ONES) and he strikes me as a techno-utopian pacifist who believed everybody should come together to do big science things, which to be fair and to tie things back to my original point, Orwell would've also opposed. A big reason why he is remembered is because he actually had a big science brain that correctly predicted a lot of things like satellite communications that even cyberpunk wouldn't get until the next century

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 03:24

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Killer robot posted:

I'm not disputing the overall points, but him pointing out the shortcomings of sci-fi about tobacco addicts with few women around is hilarious after rereading the first parts of Foundation Asimov wrote in the 1940s.

I'm not gonna say he wasn't a huge weirdo, but literally everybody was from that era of genre writing. Probably the most sane pro-Orwell writer to come from it was Le Guin who I am happy to admit was the best writer in American history

Raenir Salazar posted:

Okay so you agree he's no Tom Clancy then? Because that's what comes to mind when someone says "Cold War Warrior" to me; someone whose world view is reflecting in their writings as being about the confrontation between "East and West" which is nothing like Asimov. Asimov's writings even tend to buck this by having stories where a Soviet and American scientist need to cooperate to save the world etc.

And yeah, Asimov is/was a member of the Humanist Society, and is my primary personal sociopolitical influence, so of course his works largely reflect an optimistic ideal of where scientific advancement should be for the betterment of all mankind which is a goal I can also get behind.

I think Asimov is remembered for a little bit more than just getting one or two things right! He was the most prolific scifi writer of the 20th century with the Foundation series and I, Robot being basically the most famous and this on top of a massive catalogue of popular science articles/books.

The 1980's sequels that tie I, Robot and Foundation together were fine; a bit of a twist but fine.

Extra Credits has a series on Asimov and a lot of other scifi writers

Well no, because even back then the most "Tom Clancy" writers were just totally unhinged in a way that state intelligence agencies had no real control over like they do modern writing, outside of pulps at least which were just frankly incoherent in tone. Like even the most insane psychopaths like Heinlein would opine for chapters at a time about the virtues of child prostitution whereas nowadays it's all just "rah rah terrorists are coming over ARE BORDERS"

One of the reasons I'm so drawn to the era despite its warts is how many writers within it were so uniquely strange and allowed to pursue that strangeness. It isn't just Asimov but Cordwainer Smith and Lem and PKD and the rest. I, Robot is indeed a masterwork I recommend to everybody! It's a masterwork alongside The Martian Chronicles. My intense hatred of Foundation and Earth doesn't effect that at all though I will never deny it.

Maybe I was being too glib and I'll admit that, when I say "he was a cold warrior" for the time in the context of talking about his critique of Orwell, it's not to say he was a gibbering McCarthyite freak but rather he has no real reason to defend the man other than political, which obviously he didn't care at all about. I definitely did a poor job of communicating this based on your response and I apologize, I hope my explanation clarifies it. Describing him as a "cold warrior" was an offhand remark that Le Guin made (describing him as "The old chieftain of cold warriors") that I thought was amusing enough to repeat is all

# ¿ Nov 19, 2021 04:32

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Leto II 2.0, the one who became the God Emperor and not the one who died as a baby, was a native born Fremen who knew no other life, or well would've if not for the circumstances of his birth. I guess it's part of why God Emperor is my favorite of the original good books...reminded me a lot of so many Culture novels where the lesson is pain and there's no good guys or good things even if the outcome is the best one possible. Also the scene where someone climbed a cliff so well somebody watching them had an orgasm

It's not something I think that can be addressed well in movie form unfortunately, but I'm willing to give it a chance if only because I'm horny of Villeneuve's big sweeping majestic settings. It really does feel like a setting more amenable to a long running mini-series but I don't think I'd trust anybody to do it except for whoever did Deadwood

# ¿ Nov 29, 2021 00:51

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Thanos is basically just Mitt Romney or the New Democrats' agenda on a grander scale, the end result of the total expunging of all materialist thought from all facets of economics and culture. A villainous scheme premised on the destruction of half the productive capacity of a planet being a magical panacea coming out right before a pandemic killed off like half a percent of the population focused hardest on the "non-productive" and precarious underclasses created a staffing catastrophe is just the darkly humorous icing on the cake.

Kinda wish we get an alternate Earth version where Commie Colossus or Red Son gets the gauntlet and just finger snaps the richest 0.5% and we get a movie exploring the aftermath of that, but I'm pretty sure it'd be the end of every bit of Pentagon support the industry enjoys lol. I'd have more to contribute but honestly Infinity War exhausted me so much that I barely remember it and skipped Endgame entirely. Only Villeneuve should be allowed to make 3 hour long movies.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2021 19:10

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Raenir Salazar posted:

It doesn't seem like an uninsurmountable leap of the imagination to me. Simply put the most advanced civilizations that got snapped presumably all recover first; and if Thanos is right then they all engage in more responsible conservation and stewardship of their resources and then as part of their new duty will the moment a newcomer civilization arrives on the scene that hasn't internalized those lessons will go and apply peer pressure on the late comers to develop sustainably.

Like it is flawed but not in the way you think it is, its flawed in the way that any rationalization of a narcissistic form of the sunken cost fallacy is; it isn't hard to from that point of view to think of ways in which everything will work out; and also ultimately I think we're supposed to assume that Thanos knew it was a desperate gamble to begin with, it's just the least-worst option he can think of.

Its a good theory but I think any what if that involves stopping Star Lord from loving up just results in someone loving up. For example Star Lord tries to use the Gauntlet to bring Gamora back, which forces him to go Revenge of the Sith and bring it to Thanos etc.

Why would it be assumed that much larger and more complicated civilizations would recover from a collapse the quickest? Seems like the opposite would be the case, not least of all because half of the people who created the crisis of that moment would still be around and in much better starting positions than their similarly wiped out opponents. That's even before getting into how much more dependent they are on complex systems that would be shattered by the sudden loss of half of those tasked with maintaining them.

The black death hit some areas of Europe of the tune of 50% of the people died, there wasn't any suddenly rise into sustainable prosperity for all there or anything. Leopold's Congo similarly took decades after the rubber terrors to even get back on its feet only to find themselves saddled with someone who wasn't any better because of the intervention of said bad actors.

IIRC it's not even a desperate gamble, it's portrayed in the movies as a grim thing that was nonetheless successful, because basically the writers said it was and that's that

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Isn't it 50% of all life? I feel like not limiting the thing to 50% of sapient life or something, which would sorta make sense, has to be part of the conversation. Like, were they afraid that anything but a flat rate culling across the board would encourage people to think too much about resource use? "Thanos snaps the top consumers responsible for 50% of consumption into dust" would be a very different movie.

I'd certainly hope not, because a sudden halving of the bottom of the food chain would mean there just isn't room for the upper tiers for a good long while

# ¿ Nov 30, 2021 20:49

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Raenir Salazar posted:

First, it isn't us assuming that, it's Thanos assuming that; but on screen in the MCU Earth didn't collapse; and based on what we can infer in Endgame, while there were problems the rest of the galaxy didn't collapse either. We've also (in real life) never seen a technologically advanced society completely collapse; the closest example is the USSR and they still maintained the basic fundamentals of a civil service and its technological base.

Sure an argument can be made that there would simply be a NeoBronze Age collapse situation where losing half your population results in a domino effect of irreplaceable complex systems collapsing as one domino knocks out another; but its a theory with limited evidence, its a good argument and I like it a lot but we can't just automatically assume some theory or another is clearly correct when analyzing film.

In Endgame its even directly stated that half of humanity going away actually allowed for many ecosystems to actually recover from Humanities industrialization; so on the whole narratively speaking we're supposed to see that Thanos "has a point" with the setting basically bearing partially him out, otherwise it would be a completely uninteresting conflict if Thanos was entirely in the wrong. I don't think that's the writers "deciding" something, I think that's how storytelling works.

The mindset in which to approach this isn't going to be well served entirely assuming a completely realistic and grounded assumptions, but also consider the narrative weight of the actions on screen. The whole point of this discussion was someone basically saying that Thanos's motivation made no sense and the comics version would have been better, and I disagree; I think it does make some sort of sense but you have to get into the right mindset for it. Something can make sense and be internally consistent and be flawed.

Basically to put it into terms I think you'd better appreciate, imagine if instead of half of all life literally; since its a film and nothing is literal in fiction; its metaphorical allusion to something else; and that something else is probably some combination of capitalism, climate change and the existing entrenched status quo power structures that refuse to see reason everything lines from there up for me. Thanos is a Che Guevera like revolutionary seeking to upend the existing order fighting a successful guerrilla campaign but doesn't think he can reach his goals in his lifetime without nuclear weapons to terrorize the world into correcting itself; which has real life precedent with Mao during the Cuban Missile crisis.

The simplest answer is they either threaten them into confirming and adopting a different form of society that can develop "the right way" or they move in militarily to force it. Lots of history of this sort of nation building for centuries for us to draw on. If we assume an ideologically changed galactic society along the lines of thinking that Thanos would have wanted that would entirely be in keeping with his aims and methods.

I think we're on the same page more or less then, I'll admit I've mostly been viewing this in terms of how it'd play out in our contemporary world and not the analysis of it in the films, which I can't really speak to beyond the stuff I got through osmosis here and in broader popular culture. I think it's easy to write a scenario where it mostly worked out, but it'd be a whole lot messier in reality and it relies on assuming critical systems for advanced civilization are a lot more robust than they are in practice, and it doesn't seem like that's a controversial opinion.

Thanos snap as metaphor, yeah it's really something to ponder on. I've not been too concerned about Thano's motivations because while they're interesting in a literary sense, the practical effects are far more interesting and pertinent, but again I'm not coming from a deep dive on it like I would with say, Dark Knight Rises or - god help us all - Assassin's Creed. If we ever get around to Godzilla movies I'll probably have a lot more to say

# ¿ Nov 30, 2021 21:28

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

There's a lot going on in Shin Godzilla and not all of it is fashy, in short it's the third glorious return to Godzilla As Metaphor which are all the best ones. It's been forever since I've seen it or pondered it but I'll write something up about it. It's a wonderful series because it flits wildly between serious, schlock, insane, and campy. Everything from serious musings about nuclear war and proliferation to "what if your best friend was a robot who could grow huge/flying turtle?"

I'll leave this here as one of my favorite anecdotes about how the message of these films is worked behind the scenes

quote:

After the film's [Godzilla 1984] lackluster performance in the Japanese box office and the ultimate shelving of Steve Miner's Godzilla 3D project, Toho decided to distribute the film overseas in order to regain lost profits. New World Pictures acquired The Return of Godzilla for distribution in North America, and changed the title to Godzilla 1985, bringing back Raymond Burr in order to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Godzilla: King of the Monsters!. Originally, New World reportedly planned to re-write the dialogue in order to turn the film into a tongue-in-cheek comedy starring Leslie Nielsen (� la What's Up, Tiger Lily?), but this plan was reportedly scrapped because Raymond Burr expressed displeasure at the idea, taking the idea of Godzilla as a nuclear metaphor seriously.

I wish they had filmed it so we could enjoy it today, though Burr was of course correct

# ¿ Dec 4, 2021 02:43

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Sanguinia posted:

This describes exactly why I really like Godzilla King of the Monsters (2017) and didn't get why it was so mercilessly lashed by a lot of critics and fans. It's not a perfect movie but it captures a modern blockbuster version of everything great about godzilla, from the schlock to the serious metaphorical musings. A lightyear improvement over the 2014 launch film.

King Kong vs Godzilla is similarly good but as a story is a lot more about the crazy goofy SciFi "lore," and trying to be character driven than it is about any kind of deeper meaning, even a dumb deeper meaning like KotM, so it's really a Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi situation with those two films for me.

Kong Skull Island remains the untouchable god-emperor of the Monsterverse, natch.

I'll confess I haven't actually seen KSI, but if you say it surpasses the likes of 1954 and Godzilla vs Hedora I'm going to check it out right now to add to my analysis. I enjoyed KotM but my critique of Legendary is more or less unchanged in that they focus too much on the humans without giving them the sort of metaphorical depth or narrative purpose that they got in Shin Godzilla or similar titles of the type. Stupidly unlikely technology spurring hubris that results in doom that otherwise wouldn't have happened, monsters from space, tremendous peril, etc, all the good stuff

That said, I'm not so sure why it was treated so poorly either. It delivered exactly what it promised and did so very well. How could a movie with The King possibly be reviewed poorly? Completely insane. By King Kong vs Godzilla you're referring to the 1962 one right? Because that one is an absolute classic of the type, known best by the tree choking gif which is absolutely appropriate

What did you think of the Netflix Godzilla anime movies, out of curiosity? I'll admit that I loved them personally but even among kaiju fanatics it's hard to find someone who is even aware they exist

Epic High Five fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Dec 4, 2021

# ¿ Dec 4, 2021 07:48

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Watched Kong Skull Island and I enjoyed it....was sort of baseline pablum and blahblah the sort of thing you expect, but genre subversion in regards to the existing Kong mythos was there and made a lot of sense, after a fashion. My takes as a kaiju guy:

1) The whole "we lost this one stupid war so we need to double down on this one" theme was about the most unsubtle thing I've ever seen in films, which is not to say I don't appreciate it or didn't enjoy it. Vengeance, slaughter, terror, domination, the psychotic drive to destroy all who oppose you, it's all there and of course the hapless well-intentioned morons who are so stupid as to be cautious are immediately caught up in it. Can't help but feel like the general theme is "sucks to be anybody who thought this guy knew what he was doing/was obligated to follow his orders"

2) Kong's respect/admiration/acknowledgement of a person's non-rapacious attitude is a nice touch that subverts the original Kong "white damsel in distress" themes (among more legitimate ones) while also exploring the theme of kaiju that aren't just forces of blind malevolence.

3) There was maybe 4 times where I thought that the direction was some kind of harkening to Apocalypse Now or even Heart of Darkness before it...but nothing that really touched on it really or even came close. The natives were treated brusquely and as sort of passive characters nobody ever has to worry about ever, for any reason. I'd say the whole "there's an entire civ here already maybe explore that a bit?" part that was immediately ditched was a big source of frustration for me. One needs to struggle to be more empire-centric than some of the worst Showa entries, but this harkened back to them

Kong v Godzilla is next on my list, and I'll be watching it after I re-watch the original. My big analysis of Shin Godzilla is something I'm still pondering on because the problem really comes down to the fact that I'm not very smart and don't watch very many movies so it takes a lot for me to be able to make pretty words about something so perfect as that film. As a handicap as I seek to elaborate upon it I've chosen to write all this up while 50mg deep on THC despite previous low tolerance so, as wise ones before me once said - "hail satan"

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 04:46

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 13:32

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

Sanguinia posted:

Glad you liked it, and some interesting comments I hadn't heard before. Its hard to find anything but gushing praise for KSI so I appreciate the more critical eye. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about Kong vs Godzilla.

I actually already did but tossed my opinions of it in a pretty loose format into a different thread since this one died down. My main takeaway was that thematically and in terms of messaging it was a lot less adventurous than KSI or even really the median kaiju movie, and my long running complaint about these series that the humans get more focus than their personalities can reasonably support. Was expecting to hear a callback at some point to the weird warp tunnel they found in King of Monsters to the sunken city but I guess that was some other kind of insane phenomenon of the deeps. I also think they could've settled with just making Kong even more anthropomorphized OR Godzilla more of a nebulous and unknowable force instead of both. I liked it a lot still because of the bigger thing I noticed about it that I had sort of been waiting for, to whit:

They've finally embraced going totally bonkers. We're back in late Showa bananas territory baby, and I couldn't be happier. Hollow earth home of the kaiju, kaiju ghost spirits, MECHAGODZILLA, dread and alien powers man what weren't meant to meddle with, bonkers super tech deus ex machina in service of deus ex machina except it's not even the right word because it was never actually needed, it's just there because hell yeah why not. I cannot wait for the arrival of bizarre aliens with convoluted plans toward world domination foiled by groups of meddlesome kids and the help of their good friend Gamera/Mothra/Jet Jaguar. Characters are introduced as critically important to this or that character who themselves are maybe half developed and killed within minutes, not all of the classic hits but enough that I was doing the :yeshaha:

by the end in anticipation of the only place this could all go.

The final battle scene was absolutely choice, as well. Mecha-Godzilla is such a common theme explored so differently among the many ways it has appeared over the decades, and I was glad it ended how it did instead of being a more rote metaphor of man's hubris/intellect against a primal beast summoned by said forces in the first place. It was better overall than Showa Mecha-Godzilla, but I think the Netflix take on it is still the most interestingly and strangely done. I do certainly hope it returns to its old Duncan Idaho role of ever destroyed, ever returning. Godzilla is currently sort of straddling the pre and post-Ghidora line where it could be either villain or defender and I'm interested to see where it goes. Inshallah, it is a modern take on Godzilla vs Hedorah with the style of the original maintained

No other kaiju movies on the docket for awhile though I may give Netflix a re-watch or Singular Point a watch since I hadn't heard of it until this thread. Next up is Sorcerer because of a recommendation from the Snowrunner thread

# ¿ Jan 13, 2022 20:52

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