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Luminous Obscurity posted:In The Avengers everyone is too busy having fun to really think about it. Afterwards you can stop and think "Hm, a lot of people probably died." but during the film we are never really hit with this like we are in Man of Steel. Even more disturbingly, Avengers specifies how few people die, with the aforementioned "everything explodes but nobody gets hurt" sequence. It's right after the aliens bust through the wormhole. They do a big gun run on a bunch of parked cars and cafes. Everything explodes, but every pedestrian runs straight out of it unharmed. Even when 6 cars all do exploding flips, not a single one lands on the cops who were standing right next to them. Then, by the time the Avengers take on the aliens in kung fu fights, every one of the pedestrians in downtown New York has vanished in the space of a couple of minutes. Even when Thor and Hulk smash one of the flying dragon things into central station, not a single person gets squashed. The Avengers is a seriously weird movie. With its idiot villain, (who is individually humiliated either mentally, physically or both by every member of the Avengers) paper mache enemies and consequence free carnage, it seems like a massive exercise in spending millions of dollars making sure no one feels anything.
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May 6, 2014 03:54
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Snowman_McK posted:Even more disturbingly, Avengers specifies how few people die, with the aforementioned "everything explodes but nobody gets hurt" sequence. It's right after the aliens bust through the wormhole. They do a big gun run on a bunch of parked cars and cafes. Everything explodes, but every pedestrian runs straight out of it unharmed. Even when 6 cars all do exploding flips, not a single one lands on the cops who were standing right next to them. Then, by the time the Avengers take on the aliens in kung fu fights, every one of the pedestrians in downtown New York has vanished in the space of a couple of minutes. Even when Thor and Hulk smash one of the flying dragon things into central station, not a single person gets squashed. I felt the emotion of stokedness at seeing a bunch of cool poo poo happen.
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May 6, 2014 04:04
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DNS posted:I felt the emotion of stokedness at seeing a bunch of cool poo poo happen. It's the action scene equivalent of a cumshot compilation on Redtube. No set up, no hardship for the characters. Just them taking down wave after wave of moron enemies. Even the dragon things, which they kind of set up as something hard to beat, are getting taken out easily by the end of the sequence.
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May 6, 2014 04:24
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You people would LOVE Geoff Johns' work, I can tell.
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May 6, 2014 04:40
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Snowman_McK posted:It's the action scene equivalent of a cumshot compilation on Redtube. No set up, no hardship for the characters. Just them taking down wave after wave of moron enemies. Even the dragon things, which they kind of set up as something hard to beat, are getting taken out easily by the end of the sequence. Sounds badarse.
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May 6, 2014 04:52
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Snowman_McK posted:It's the action scene equivalent of a cumshot compilation on Redtube. No set up, no hardship for the characters. Just them taking down wave after wave of moron enemies. Even the dragon things, which they kind of set up as something hard to beat, are getting taken out easily by the end of the sequence. Haha. I like this Avengers climax analogy. I've always used the "it's basically Power Rangers fighting the Putty Patrol" one, but I might switch over to yours instead.
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May 6, 2014 05:05
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I wonder why more women dont post in Cd.
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May 6, 2014 05:06
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Maxwell Lord posted:You people would LOVE Geoff Johns' work, I can tell. Don't be stupid. There's a difference between something overstuffed with gratuitous violence for shock effect and expecting a climactic action sequence in a packet metropolis to not be completely bloodless, sanitary and effortless. This isn't even some sort of dumb verisimilitude argument about whatever bullshit, The Avengers' climax suffers because it refuses to address that there are things at stake beside nebulous win/loss conditions. It lacks tension throughout and there's very little to be invested in beside flashy special effects and fan service. Shirkelton fucked around with this message at 05:37 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 05:34
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Luminous Obscurity posted:The Avengers is absolutely more worrying. I find it worrying that there are people who believe that defending yourself in an extremely lopsided battle, and somehow winning, is something to fret about. All they had to do to survive is not attack Earth. gently caress the hand-wringing. They brought in on themselves.
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May 6, 2014 06:13
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GORDON posted:I find it worrying that there are people who believe that defending yourself in an extremely lopsided battle, and somehow winning, is something to fret about. What were they defending, again?
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May 6, 2014 06:15
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Dan Didio posted:Don't be stupid. There's a difference between something overstuffed with gratuitous violence for shock effect and expecting a climactic action sequence in a packet metropolis to not be completely bloodless, sanitary and effortless. But it comes from the same place, the argument that "stakes" require a body count. This is where that line of thinking leads, the idea that you can only convey danger by showing corpses. Personally I like the fact that we actively see the Avengers saving lives as well as fighting the bad guys. Too many superhero comics show the latter and treat the former as an afterthought- often having them arrive too late. MoS wasn't too bad about this but the common argument against the former and for the latter has been that the extra brutality is something the genre desperately needs.
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May 6, 2014 06:15
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:What were they defending, again? The city from the army that was coming from the portal and indiscriminately blowing poo poo up? I'm not sure I understand the question.
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May 6, 2014 06:16
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GORDON posted:The city from the army that was coming from the portal and indiscriminately blowing poo poo up? I'm not sure I understand the question. I asked what they were defending. What were the villains attacking that they needed to defend?
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May 6, 2014 06:18
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I asked what they were defending. What were the villains attacking that they needed to defend? I didn't get a look at their battle plan when I was on their mothership. I did notice the first thing that aliens did when they came through was blow up a bunch of cars on a road that probably had a bunch of civilians and kids in them.
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May 6, 2014 06:19
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I asked what they were defending. What were the villains attacking that they needed to defend? The villains were attacking to subjugate and remove free will from humanity as Loki explicitly stated was his goal onscreen.
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May 6, 2014 06:23
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GORDON posted:I didn't get a look at their battle plan when I was on their mothership. I did notice the first thing that aliens did when they came through was blow up a bunch of cars on a road that probably had a bunch of civilians and kids in them. They hate these cars! Stay away from the cars! ImpAtom posted:The villains were attacking to subjugate and remove free will from humanity as Loki explicitly stated was his goal onscreen. Three questions, then: 1) What does that mean? 2) How does blowing up cars accomplish this? 3) How do the Avengers restore free will to humanity?
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May 6, 2014 06:26
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
1) The complete subjugation of humanity via fear, as embodied by his appearance in Germany earlier in the film. While he has a mind control scepter that lets him force people to obey him, he still chooses to threaten and force instead. When someone stands up to him even after a display of force he attempts to kill them. 2) By creating fear, exactly as Loki himself does earlier in the film, he intends to force humanity to its "natural state" as he stated earlier in the film. This is a flawed reasoning because the character is flawed and is unable to understand why someone would not bow to someone stronger than they are. 3) As the man does earlier in the film, the Avengers stand up against him and refuse to bow to him. They are shown giving confidence and faith to those around them as they act. Though unrealistic, this confidence and faith gives the people around them the ability to stand up against those attempting to take their free will. They restore free will by refusing to bow in fear. It isn't particularly realistic or well-thought out but it is presented unambiguously onscreen.
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May 6, 2014 06:34
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ImpAtom posted:The complete subjugation of humanity via fear [...] They restore free will by refusing to bow in fear. Today's predominant mode of politics, the post-political biopolitics, is a politics of fear, formulated as a defense against a potential victimization or harassment. "How are we to break out of this (post)politics of fear? The biopolitical administration of life is the true content of global liberal democracy, and this introduces the tension between democratic form and administrative-regulatory content. Which, then, would be the opposite of biopolitics? What if we take the risk of resuscitating the good old "dictatorship of the proletariat" as the only way to break biopolitics? ... This is the only true choice today." "A commonsense reproach arises here: why dictatorship? Why not true democracy or simply power of the proletariat? 'Dictatorship' does not mean the opposite of democracy, but democracy's own underlying mode of functioning - from the very beginning, the thesis on 'dictatorship of the proletariat' involved the presupposition that it is the opposite of other form(s) of dictatorship, since the entire field of state power is that of dictatorship. When Lenin designated liberal democracy as a form of bourgeois dictatorship, he did not imply a simplistic notion on how democracy is really manipulated, a mere facade, on how some secret clique is really in power and controls things, and that, if threatened to lose power in democratic elections, they will show their true face and assume direct power. What he meant is that the very FORM of the bourgeois-democratic state, the sovereignty of its power in its ideologico-political presuppositions, embodies a 'bourgeois' logic. One should thus use the term 'dictatorship' in the precise sense in which democracy also is a form of dictatorship, i.e., as a purely formal determination. One likes to point out how self-questioning is constitutive of democracy, how democracy always allows, solicits us even, to question its own features. However, this self-referentiality has to stop at some point: even the most 'free' elections cannot put in question the legal procedures that legitimize and organize them, the state apparatuses that guarantee (per force, if necessary) the electoral process, etc. The State in its institutional aspect is a massive presence which cannot be accounted for in the terms of the representation of interests - the democratic illusion is that it can. Badiou conceptualized this excess as the excess of the State re-presentation over what it represents; one can also put it in Benjaminian terms: while democracy can more or less eliminate constituted violence, it still has to rely continuously on the constitutive violence." -Zizek, Robespierre or the "Divine Violence" of Terror SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:07 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 07:04
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Maxwell Lord posted:But it comes from the same place, the argument that "stakes" require a body count. Stakes require a threat, the antagonists in The Avengers are completely non-threatening. It has nothing to do with some desperate outcry for extreme violence and 'this is where that line of thinking leads' is nonsense. The Avengers succeed in The Avengers only because it's made impossible for them to fail. Shirkelton fucked around with this message at 07:55 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 07:51
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The Avengers is bad because it's a comic book movie.
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May 6, 2014 07:55
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corn in the bible posted:The Avengers is bad because it's a comic book movie.
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May 6, 2014 07:56
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Maxwell Lord posted:But it comes from the same place, the argument that "stakes" require a body count. This is where that line of thinking leads, the idea that you can only convey danger by showing corpses. The villains have to represent something, or be something. True villains aren't really villainous because they have some kind of purpose, or their villainy is played for comic, parody-like effect. Loki rambles about fear in a very strange way for a while, so he represents...rule through fear? Divine right of kings? He is unapologetically just 'the bad dude' in a way no other movie has dared in a long time. Zod as a parallel, is the bad guy because he wants to 'save Krypton' by, terrifyingly, not only destroying humanity but by recreating a world that we know all too well will eventually destroy itself. Saving Krypton is his purpose, and that's what he really wants to do. Once his plan fails, the mask drops and we see that beneath the illusion of purpose is a crazed murderous rear end in a top hat hiding behind his role. Who Loki is is basically a punchline 'he's adopted!' - but that removes him as a credible threat. He's constantly undercut by being shown to answer to someone else, but we never actually see them and probably won't for a few more movies. So the Avengers are SAVING THE WORLD! FROM JOKEMAN! THE ONE LOKI BEAT ON HIS OWN BEFORE! And then the faceless, uninteresting, generically 'bad' baddies literally just come out of the sky so there can be a fight at the end. I wish I wasn't making it up, but holy poo poo this is the worst thing.
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May 6, 2014 14:50
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They really were too enamored with the idea of "Loki was the first Avengers villain in the comics" and failed to realize how little that works in a film. He was never a meaningful threat. He did a lot of damage but the only reason he gets as far as he does is because the plot demands that none of the superheroes punch him in the face. Then when they decide to punch him in the face it miraculously works real good. He's a hollow, empty and nonthreatening villain.
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May 6, 2014 14:54
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:They hate these cars! Stay away from the cars! Come on, now. I like your analysis of movies, and I know you're better than this. But I'll go ahead and say it: you know that cars outside of the Pixar universe require people inside of them to get them from place to place, right? I'm not sure what you are getting at, but when an army breaks down your door and starts killing peeps, it is usually a sign you gotta kill them before they kill you. Even if it was all just a misunderstanding then hey... they were violating immigration laws, and we know our government enforces those harshly. Peeps all showing up on their flying sleds without passports or visas... didn't even go through customs... hell naw.
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May 6, 2014 15:18
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GORDON posted:Peeps all showing up on their flying sleds without passports or visas... didn't even go through customs... Clearly, the only option is genocide.
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May 6, 2014 18:37
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"We have to stop the Helicarrier from hitting the city" *doesn't show said Helicarrier anywhere near said city in the same shot. One good aspect of Cap 3 is that, even though I don't particularly remember any civvies getting hurt by anything; the framing and blocking always made it seem like bystanders could be hurt. Things were happening in full traffic, around areas with people moving, and not clearly cordoned off spaces where the heroes/villains could do whatever the hell they wanted with no thought to collateral damage even coming into play.
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May 6, 2014 19:27
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Hbomberguy posted:Clearly, the only option is genocide. I don't know, I figure destroying an alien invasion force currently located in space nowhere near earth but poised to swarm in and conquer the everloving poo poo out of the planet would pretty much be the only time that using nukes is not only justifiable but probably the best course of action.
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May 6, 2014 20:23
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The problem though is that the Illuminati were going to blow up New York, not the invading army.
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May 6, 2014 20:27
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Tezcatlipoca posted:The problem though is that the Illuminati were going to blow up New York, not the invading army. Yeah, that's why I said space based and not on earth - Stark diverting the missile through the wormhole was the correct action in the situation since it minimized human casualties and prevented the rest of the invasion altogether. I'd also argue that it wasn't a genocide since it was done as a last minute response to prevent the deaths of millions of people and helped neutralize an aggressive invading force bent on the subjugation of the human race. If we used the Super-Hubble to track down the aliens home planet and then carpet bombed them from orbit with our nuclear arsenal with the intent to wipe out the species, then that would pretty clearly be an instance of genocide.
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May 6, 2014 20:35
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Destroying an enemy army isn't genocide. I understand the rhetorical temptation to phrase it that way but you do violence to the meaning of the word.
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May 6, 2014 20:35
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Loki doesn't really say anything about fear. He's actually very clear about his motivations. He is wants to free people from the 'mad scramble for power' that leads to strife. People also missed the point of him trying to anger the Hulk. The whole point of the scenes with Black Widow is that 'she brings the Hulk'. She carries the hulk inside her, as it were. By attacking New York City, Loki is likewise trying to explode the tensions and contradictions that make life in America possible. "You [Black Widow] pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are a part of you, and they will never go away!" "You're a monster!" "Oh no, you brought the monster." Loki is clearly talking about Black Widow - but she immediately intuits that he is simultaneously referring to the Hulk, who is born of the military-industrial complex and lives in the slums of India. When Loki attacks cars, he is actually attacking "the borderline which today separates the digitalized First World from the Third World 'desert of the Real'" - the fiction of being separate. To the people in downtown New York, being stripped of power is totally unfathomable - but to a kid in India, this is all too familiar. "We don't yet know what consequences in economy, ideology, politics, war, this event will have, but one thing is sure: the US, which, till now, perceived itself as an island exempted from this kind of violence, witnessing this kind of things only from the safe distance of the TV screen, is now directly involved. So the alternative is: will Americans decide to fortify further their "sphere," or to risk stepping out of it? Either America will persist in, strengthen even, the attitude of "Why should this happen to us? Things like this don't happen HERE!", leading to more aggressivity towards the threatening Outside, in short: to a paranoiac acting out. Or America will finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdue move from "A thing like this should not happen HERE!" to "A thing like this should not happen ANYWHERE!". America's "holiday from history" was a fake: America's peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere. Therein resides the true lesson of the bombings: the only way to ensure that it will not happen HERE again is to prevent it going on ANYWHERE ELSE." Where Superman flies to India to fight oppression and thus save the entire world, the Avengers focus entirely on New York and drop India immediately. This is the essential difference.
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May 6, 2014 20:35
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Zizek posted:"Or America will finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdue move from 'A thing like this should not happen HERE!' to 'A thing like this should not happen ANYWHERE!'". lol
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May 6, 2014 22:54
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corn in the bible posted:The Avengers is bad because it's a movie equivalent of a comic book.
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May 6, 2014 23:06
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Counterpoint: The Avengers is good because it is the movie equivalent of a comic book. Which is it's purpose. What it was made to be. How many thing are not what they were made to be? How many things will never be what they were made to be? Look upon The Avengers and see that it is a vision made manifest. Warts and all.
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May 6, 2014 23:11
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Snak posted:Counterpoint: The Avengers is good because it is the movie equivalent of a comic book. Which is it's purpose. What it was made to be. How many thing are not what they were made to be? How many things will never be what they were made to be? Look upon The Avengers and see that it is a vision made manifest. Warts and all. You're right. Avengers is right up there with nuclear bombs and ipecac in terms of craftsmanship. Bow before The Avengers.
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May 6, 2014 23:42
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Snak posted:Counterpoint: The Avengers is good because it is the movie equivalent of a comic book. Which is it's purpose. What it was made to be. How many thing are not what they were made to be? How many things will never be what they were made to be? Look upon The Avengers and see that it is a vision made manifest. Warts and all. In my opinion, The Avengers is a comic book movie.
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May 6, 2014 23:49
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Snak posted:Counterpoint: The Avengers is good because it is the movie equivalent of a comic book. Which is it's purpose. What it was made to be. How many thing are not what they were made to be? How many things will never be what they were made to be? Look upon The Avengers and see that it is a vision made manifest. Warts and all. This will only be true when Plato decides to go up and make comic book movies. DC characters The Wonder Twins will be in them, because they can transform into the Forms of things.
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May 7, 2014 02:27
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Come on man, they can only resemble the Forms
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May 7, 2014 03:36
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Hbomberguy posted:Clearly, the only option is genocide. I'd like to hear your thoughts on Independence day.
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May 7, 2014 11:21
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GORDON posted:
Hbomberguy posted:Clearly, the only option is genocide. The Avengers functions quite well as a critique of Australia's refuge policy. A bunch of "scary" foreigners on ramshackle transports fleeing a greater threat are brutalized by a military organization with no accountability. We never see any Chitauri prisoners, presumably they are all in indefinite offshore detention now.
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May 7, 2014 14:39
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