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The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012
No that is not the case at all. This movie especially has scenes that are ripped directly out of 9/11 footage. Haha I forgot that the Law and Order: SVU guy literally flies a plane into the Kryptonian ship.

On another note, my favorite part of this movie was the beginning where we see superman as a sort of incognito folk hero. Growing up that is what Superman was to me. He was the guy who would save the trapped men in the deep water horizon. He would have sealed the leaking oil with his laser sight too I bet.

BTW everyone knows Mrs. Kent sewed superman's outfit out of the blanket he was wrapped in.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 08:41 on Feb 18, 2014

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JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!
It might also be that we're at a point in FX powers where the effects and scenes can mimic the actual destruction we're seeing.

10-20 years ago, city-grade destruction in film looked totally different. Things completely exploded, collapsed in pre-arranged ways, were wiped in a wave of quick destruction or destruction was limited to a more contained area.

Now we're seeing so much more detail in that sort of thing. Buildings that come down slowly after horrific attack, explosions that gut a building and leave it teetering rather than setting off a chain-reaction fireball.

Baron Bifford
May 24, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 3 years!
The only 9/11 influence on movies is that scenes of city destruction now have a lot of gray dust everywhere, mimicking the photos of 9/11. Before, it was just fire and rubble.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012

JediTalentAgent posted:

It might also be that we're at a point in FX powers where the effects and scenes can mimic the actual destruction we're seeing.

10-20 years ago, city-grade destruction in film looked totally different. Things completely exploded, collapsed in pre-arranged ways, were wiped in a wave of quick destruction or destruction was limited to a more contained area.

Now we're seeing so much more detail in that sort of thing. Buildings that come down slowly after horrific attack, explosions that gut a building and leave it teetering rather than setting off a chain-reaction fireball.

This I can agree with and understand. But just like Japan created Godzilla as a way to recount and understand their feelings about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is something more to this than just making buildings tumble and fall over for fun.

It just disturbs me on a fundamental level to see people tumbling around inside buildings and watching buildings fall around people for amusement. I sound like a moralizing old I guess. In transformers 3 there are scenes where people are tumbling around in a collapsing building like its a fun roller-coaster ride but nobody ever gets hurt. I don't know why this disturbs me. Why people not getting hurt makes me more upset than watching gore and carnage ever could.

I have a fever of 102. I am probably not making any sense.

Take the scene in Indiana Jones where the ball is tumbling after him. You know that India's life is in danger on a visceral level. This feels like something real and solid. When Indie escapes safely you feel that his escape was probable and possible. He escaped death, he didn't cheat death.

Now you have movies where humans could never hope to survive, we are so god drat frail you know. The suspension of disbelief just isn't there anymore. Part of this is being older than a 12 year old I suppose. On the other hand I can go back and watch something like Jurassic park or Jaws and I feel the tension and danger still even though I'm approaching 30. Maybe it all comes down to the lack of blood. I'm a child of the 80s and 90s. The movies always had blood. The blood made things feel real.

Bodily fluids aren't welcome in the era of Iphones. Metalic things interact with unwoundable humanoids in an epic battle movie after movie. A return to practical effects and solid seeming things would mean the collapse of entire warehouses full of men and women clicking and manipulating polygons while servers crunch and whir in rooms with better air conditioning than the sears stores they insert into the backgrounds of imaginary main-streets they are blowing up.

When I was a child growing up in small town USA, just on the verge of the destructive force of Wal-Mart, before the state hospital closed down and everything became dull and similar we had small hardware stores and across the street from the hardware store was the pharmacy and inside the pharmacy there was an elderly lady who would sell you a sears catalog for 10 dollars and from that catalog you could order the entire world if you knew the code for the item and had the money for it in the bank down the street that was owned by the guy who owned the old movie theater in town where they played movies 10 weeks after they officially released in theaters.

All of that doesn't exist anymore. This movie just made me realize it. I'm 30 years old and I live in a world I don't recognize. My grandpa was 70 before he said the same thing, and my dad was 50 before he said it.

I think I need to go cry.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Feb 18, 2014

Yoshifan823
Feb 19, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

The Walking Dad posted:

This I can agree with and understand. But just like Japan created Godzilla as a way to recount and understand their feelings about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is something more to this than just making buildings tumble and fall over for fun.

It just disturbs me on a fundamental level to see people tumbling around inside buildings and watching buildings fall around people for amusement. I sound like a moralizing old I guess. In transformers 3 there are scenes where people are tumbling around in a collapsing building like its a fun roller-coaster ride but nobody ever gets hurt. I don't know why this disturbs me. Why people not getting hurt makes me more upset than watching gore and carnage ever could.

I have a fever of 102. I am probably not making any sense.

Take the scene in Indiana Jones where the ball is tumbling after him. You know that India's life is in danger on a visceral level. This feels like something real and solid. When Indie escapes safely you feel that his escape was probable and possible. He escaped death, he didn't cheat death.

Now you have movies where humans could never hope to survive, we are so god drat frail you know. The suspension of disbelief just isn't there anymore. Part of this is being older than a 12 year old I suppose. On the other hand I can go back and watch something like Jurassic park or Jaws and I feel the tension and danger still even though I'm approaching 30. Maybe it all comes down to the lack of blood. I'm a child of the 80s and 90s. The movies always had blood. The blood made things feel real.

It's a matter of scale. Movies now, thanks to technology, are able to create a larger environment without actually making it, so they can do things like giant buildings falling and being blown up. Jurassic Park, Jaws, Indiana Jones, all of those are small beans compared to something like Transformers or Man of Steel. We're now at a point in computer graphics where we're able to really create images that match the honest to god live poo poo that people saw on 9/11. Movies are reaching the point where they can make some of the destruction that books or comics have only been able to depict in words and images real. It's a kind of uncanny valley, except instead of realistic looking fake humans, it's realistic looking fake destruction, and I imagine just like the uncanny valley, people have different levels of being able to deal with the fake destruction we're capable of.

edit: And who's to say a Superman or Transformers movie couldn't be our Godzilla? Aside from, you know, the viewing public. The destruction in those movies is supposed to draw a reaction from you. People don't like seeing this destruction from their entertainment, but you have plenty of movies with equally massive stakes, where instead of showing bloodless destruction, they bypass the results completely and just show the heroes celebrating their victory. All massive battle scenes, especially ones where poo poo explodes, ships crash, walls crumble, villains use their massive weapons, etc., those are gonna have consequences, and it might just be that people don't like to see those consequences.

edit2: This has less to do with the quoted post, but I really don't want to double dip

I feel like, at some point, it stopped being OK for our characters to change. Superman was created drat near 100 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Man of Steel feels like an attempt to make a Superman that would be created in 2013, as opposed to giving us a movie starring the Superman that John Byrne created back in the early 80's, which is pretty much when Superman largely stopped evolving. I mean, the character started off unable to fly, without heat vision, merely super strong and essentially an enhanced human. And there was a long period where Superman could have whatever power the writer that month wanted him to have (which is mostly where the Christopher Reeve Superman hails from). And at some point, it stopped being OK to mold the character to fit what he should/can be. The Superman that Man of Steel gives us is not the utterly invincible one from the comics, the Superman who would have saved every person on 9/11 and still had enough time to stop a bank robbery back in Metropolis that afternoon, because that Superman doesn't fit in the world that Zack Snyder has in mind. This is a Superman for a world that did go through a 9/11. No hero, no matter how powerful or alien, is perfect. It's a humanizing element that Man of Steel really has in spades. In this movie, Superman isn't someone you wish you could be, he's someone you aspire to be.

People get angry when he didn't save every person in those destroyed buildings, or didn't pull Zod away from the populated areas, because he couldn't. Same as our heroes that exist in our world couldn't save every person on 9/11, can't stop every murder or violent crime from happening. But at the same time, his actions all throughout the movie show that he is a good person, and for every person he didn't save in the fight against Zod, he saved at least 10 simply by destroying the giant world ender thing. The Superman that "always finds another way" is much more out of place now than he was back in the 80s. Sometimes, as hard as it is to admit it, there's not another way. It sucks, obviously, but it's only cynicism if you let that get you down. The reason the movie ends with Superman cracking wise and entering our world is the movie's stab at optimism. Yes, you just saw a lot of death and destruction. Powerful images, horrible images, but the ultimate ending of the whole story is the most optimistic one of all: Now we have Superman, and with that, we have a brighter future.

Yoshifan823 fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Feb 18, 2014

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!
Now I'm thinking of the climax of Titanic from over 15 years ago, which might have been the first time I recall a sort of slow, awkward and desolating destruction that could be compared to the likes of a modern film.

However, much smaller in scale, though.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012

JediTalentAgent posted:

Now I'm thinking of the climax of Titanic from over 15 years ago, which might have been the first time I recall a sort of slow, awkward and desolating destruction that could be compared to the likes of a modern film.

However, much smaller in scale, though.

In that movie you actually had a connection to the people dying. That was a movie that made you care about the dumb band members playing while the ship is sinking, and there are characters that face the consequences of their own actions that aren't contemptible villains.

Jack is depicted as pale and frail at the end. He dies, actually dies and you watch him die.

In Titanic the destruction was an event that effected the characters who the movie spent a great deal of time and effort making you care about. There was spectacle but it was functional spectacle.

Does anyone ever feel like reporter a and reporter b tagging along with fat Morpheus are ever in any danger? Do we even care if they are in danger? If one of them died would that even feel like an honest emotional moment when the audience isn't even invested in them?

The tornado scene where Sungmanitu Thanka Ob'wachi gets enveloped in the tornado goes to show that Snyder understands how to make you care about a character and how to make destruction serve a purpose in a meaningful way. You even feel like it's plausible that a man like that would risk his life over the family dog. You think a man like that probably has strong ideas about the order of things and he could be the last in a line of pastoral seers. A loyal beast is no less than a human to such a man.

Zach Snyder can create moments like those. He just seems unable to restrain himself.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Feb 18, 2014

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN
The idea that people need to risk death to be truly threatened is a deceptive lure - as is the idea that we cannot sympathize with people without first 'getting to know them'.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
I'm confused that you're talking about how horrific the destruction in the terraforming sequence is while at the same time criticizing the movie for pretending that it's all in good fun or that no one gets hurt. I think you're right about the former; Man of Steel never gave us straight-up piles of bodies like you see in the recent Godzilla trailer, but the obvious implication of the final two action sequences is that mass carnage took place and countless people died. A lot of people excoriate the movie for excessive gloom and darkness.

It's a good point that specifically the preponderance of dust makes the city destruction more real in Man of Steel (and other recent movies about a city getting totaled) compared to scenes of apocalyptic destruction pre-9/11. 9/11 really did teach us what a city getting blown down ought to look like, and now that imagery's everywhere. In particular, it fits really well with the portrayal of Krypton, because Krypton is all about dust and grit and particles and cold matter shifting around as though alive. On the other side of the planet, the Kryptonian terraforming engine was kicking up a gigantic cloud of sand without even bothering to destroy any buildings in the process - it's like the gray dust is the whole point of the exercise, and the destruction of an entire city just an insignificant intermediate stage.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Ferrinus posted:

On the other side of the planet, the Kryptonian terraforming engine was kicking up a gigantic cloud of sand without even bothering to destroy any buildings in the process - it's like the gray dust is the whole point of the exercise, and the destruction of an entire city just an insignificant intermediate stage.

That's exactly it - the goal isn't to destroy Metropolis, but to change the atmosphere, blocking the sun.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

That's exactly it - the goal isn't to destroy Metropolis, but to change the atmosphere, blocking the sun.

At the same time, there is no reason that the dual craft had to touch down where they did and not in the middle of some fields or mountains other than to give a sense of immediate threat to the audience and provide an excuse for CGI spectacle buildings collapsing.

I agree with your point about not needing to know people to care about them, but the movie never made me feel like the characters running through the maze of destruction were in any danger to begin with. There was a halo of plot armor around them even though their characters were insubstantial to the plot.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Feb 18, 2014

Mydonos
May 27, 2013

Oh my god another superman movie, the should really need some changes.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth

The Walking Dad posted:

Take the scene in Indiana Jones where the ball is tumbling after him. You know that India's life is in danger on a visceral level. This feels like something real and solid. When Indie escapes safely you feel that his escape was probable and possible. He escaped death, he didn't cheat death.

Now you have movies where humans could never hope to survive, we are so god drat frail you know. The suspension of disbelief just isn't there anymore. Part of this is being older than a 12 year old I suppose. On the other hand I can go back and watch something like Jurassic park or Jaws and I feel the tension and danger still even though I'm approaching 30. Maybe it all comes down to the lack of blood. I'm a child of the 80s and 90s. The movies always had blood. The blood made things feel real.

This is saying more about you than the films in my opinion. You're making an distinction between the movies of your youth and those today, based on how you felt when you first watched them.

You're more literate than you were, so now you're aware that Shia's not going to spill out of that collapsing building in a way you weren't aware than Indy couldn't get squashed in the first 5 minutes of his self-titled film series.

The sequences are actually remarkably similar.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth

The Walking Dad posted:

Does anyone ever feel like reporter a and reporter b tagging along with fat Morpheus are ever in any danger? Do we even care if they are in danger? If one of them died would that even feel like an honest emotional moment when the audience isn't even invested in them?

Yeah. The part where Laurence Fishburne gives up trying to save her and chooses instead to just stay with her is a very powerful moment, one of the best in the film.

The Walking Dad
Dec 31, 2012

sassassin posted:

This is saying more about you than the films in my opinion. You're making an distinction between the movies of your youth and those today, based on how you felt when you first watched them.

You're more literate than you were, so now you're aware that Shia's not going to spill out of that collapsing building in a way you weren't aware than Indy couldn't get squashed in the first 5 minutes of his self-titled film series.

The sequences are actually remarkably similar.

On the one hand we have running from a rolling boulder.

On the other we have a 20 year old male being tossed against concrete repeatedly in a manner that would break any real human's bones and rupture every organ in their body and then being flung around in a way that would easily dislocate their arms.

Remarkably similar. Although I can understand how a mundane activity like running could be unimaginable to today's audiences.

The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Feb 18, 2014

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

The Walking Dad posted:

On the one hand we have running from a rolling boulder.

On the other we have a 20 year old male being tossed against concrete repeatedly in a manner that would break any real human's bones and rupture every organ in their body and then being flung around in a way that would easily dislocate their arms.

Remarkably similar. Although I can understand how a mundane activity like running could be unimaginable to today's audiences.

A real human wouldn't meet aliens either though (or [Artifact of God X]).

I mean if you actually look at some of the tall tales or myths that cultures have, that poo poo is totally on or beyond the level of "unbelievable" that Indy 4 is, even the ones that just have regular people instead of demi-gods.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
The human body itself is wildly inconsistent in how durable it is. People have survived skydiving accidents, free falling for thousands of feet, yet falling off a bicycle and hitting your head can easily kill you.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

The Walking Dad posted:

At the same time, there is no reason that the dual craft had to touch down where they did and not in the middle of some fields or mountains other than to give a sense of immediate threat to the audience and provide an excuse for CGI spectacle buildings collapsing.

That's dismissive in such a way that you miss out on Zod's motivation.

Although the effect of the World Engine is to change the atmosphere, Zod's personal motivation for unleashing it (as it was back on Krypton) is to eliminate the 'degenerate bloodlines' that he blames for society's decadence. Metropolis is his target precisely because it is a symbol of such decadence. It's only in this film that Metropolis reaches its full significance as a reference to Fritz Lang's Metropolis - a tower of Babel, invisibly connected as it is to a literal underclass.

quote:

I agree with your point about not needing to know people to care about them, but the movie never made me feel like the characters running through the maze of destruction were in any danger to begin with. There was a halo of plot armor around them even though their characters were insubstantial to the plot.
The problem here is best illustrated in Exam - a very bad film in the 'strangers trapped in an allegorical microcosm' subgenre with Cube, The Killing Room, and so-forth.

In that one, the characters apply for a high-level position at a major pharmaceutical corporation, only to find themselves locked in an empty room. This, of course, gradually devolves into them torturing and killing eachother. However, the big twist: the corporation has discovered the secret of immortality and is testing to see who is worthy of distributing it. The liberal philanthropist(!) CEO, who had been watching the whole time, promises that everyone be revived and made immortal at the end of the exam, so nobody was actually hurt.

The first, obvious issue here is that the restoration of the body doesn't cure the psychological trauma of being tortured, shot, etc. But beyond that, the CEO is clearly made analogous to God, and the 'immortals' a metaphor for the souls that either earn a place in heaven or suffer God's absence.

The film thus accidentally but accurately links Guantanamo-style torture to the religious-fundamentalist 'culture of life' where bare life is elevated to the highest value (as in the case of Terri Schiavo). The basic logic is that it doesn't matter what happens to you - so long as you are still, biologically, alive....

Snak
Oct 10, 2005

I myself will carry you to the Gates of Valhalla...
You will ride eternal,
shiny and chrome.
Grimey Drawer
SMG, please tell me your thoughts on Cube Zero.

This is probably your first post in this thread that I think I completely agree with...

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

Phylodox posted:

The human body itself is wildly inconsistent in how durable it is. People have survived skydiving accidents, free falling for thousands of feet, yet falling off a bicycle and hitting your head can easily kill you.

The human body is a jerk.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

Phylodox posted:

The human body itself is wildly inconsistent in how durable it is. People have survived skydiving accidents, free falling for thousands of feet, yet falling off a bicycle and hitting your head can easily kill you.

This reminds me of the windshield scenes in Avatar. There is a mentality of movie watching that kind of looks at it as a series of video game stats. "He cast arrow on that glass, why did it not break the first time but break the second?" While the real world is chaotic and random.

Dog_Meat
May 19, 2013

sassassin posted:

Yeah. The part where Laurence Fishburne gives up trying to save her and chooses instead to just stay with her is a very powerful moment, one of the best in the film.

Agreeing with this.

Funnily enough, it was also the most powerful scene in Toy Story 3.

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

Hbomberguy posted:

I genuinely feel pity for people who can't enjoy a movie because there was an ideal couple of seconds missing that would have established things the 'right' way. Krypton is a corrupt and decadent planet full of idiots and they die because of it. Allow me to cite my evidence since you keep claiming there is none 'in the film':

One: Krypton is run by a bunch of extravagantly-dressed old people, implying they have been in charge for a long time, making accusations of corruption more believable - it led me to conclude they were using their power to remain in power and not do anything particularly useful.

Two: Rigid caste system. There are no more organic births on Krypton, Kal being the first in a long time - the caste system's ridiculous effects on society are made extremely obvious through this. The Kryptonians hosed themselves

Three: Stupid caste system. Despite people being born with specific identities and purposes in place, it appears possible to transcend it and make a mockery of the whole thing if you bother to do some research or training. See here the scene where the scientist character outsmarts and defeats a bunch of military characters. Again, something is very wrong with Krypton.

Four: Jor El and Zod both agree with each other about how the old council is part of the problem that hosed the planet up and that, for reasons we don't particularly need to know but can be intuited by everything else that has happened, everyone on Krypton is already dead. However because of part Three, Zod is incapable of seeing beyond his own caste's purpose and seeing the big picture, AKA this entire system is loving everyone including himself. Since Jor is a smart scientist who is right about everybody being dead, I interpreted his to mean Jor is a smart scientist who is right about everybody being dead.

Five: To escape the planet Jor-El builds a spaceship for his son. This implies a world where escaping the planet is not as simple as using those ships we saw - they don't have enough fuel, propulsion, or can't withstand the vaccuum of space, or don't have the resources for keeping large groups of people alive during long space travel. Or they're so stupid they don't know how to use them. Any of these can be true because the film implies one of them has to be and then gets on with the actual plot.

Six: Krypton as a whole is so stupid that they don't think to just lock themselves in the phantom zone and then free themselves at an indeterminate time, implying they are loving stupid, and are trapped in their ways so badly they will punish a person at a trial rather than scrambling for safety - this might have been what Jor was predicting, people not wanting to leave krypton or break its rules. They probably wouldn't have tried to leave Krypton even if they knew it was dying, which they probably don't. Who would tell them?

Seven: Because it is a suparman film and you already know krypton is dead when the film begins, so why not take the time to focus on things that are more thematic to the story than rehashing the hows and whys of the planet's destruction? Why not, since we all know krpyton is hosed from fade in, explore Krypton's military, its technology designs, its high society?

I don't even like Man of Steel very much and I've only seen it once. All this stuff is extremely obvious.

1.) Your evidence of Krypton's corrupt society is old people in funny hats.

2.) That's not evidence that Krypton is corrupt, decadent, or incapable of evacuating. There's also nothing in the film linking the caste system to the suicidal harvesting of Krypton's core. That would actually have been interesting. For example, what if Krypton's energy czar couldn't help himself when all other options were exhausted, because that's how his compulsive mind worked?

3.) What the gently caress, if people can transcend the caste system, then it's obviously not as rigid a caste system as you described it in point #2. The truth is that you're able to characterize Kryptonian society in contradictory ways because there's not actually anything in the movie about Kryptonian society other than a vaguely defined caste system.

4.) Zod, the main villain who is in the middle of a coup, complains about degenerative bloodlines. Jor-El argues with the council about harvesting the core and populating other planets. That isn't evidence that Krypton is corrupt or decadent.

5.) Jor-El built an escape pod in his spare time, and that's evidence that they lack the capability of space travel? They have warp drives that can teleport through space. They helpfully evacuated Zod and crew into a spaceship. What the gently caress, man.

6.) Yep, Krypton is loving stupid. So stupid that it's difficult to consider that segment of the movie anything less than a waste. So stupid that Zod doesn't even jump into the swimming pool to secure the codex before initiating his coup, even though is plan was to control the bloodlines. Really basic gently caress-ups in the premise that make it impossible to care about.

7.) I thought you were supposed to be presenting evidence that the movie depicted Krypton as a corrupt, decadent society, not rationalizations for why it didn't.

The story of Krypton is important because it's one of Superman's three identities. Krypton's fall has no emotional weight because there's no comeuppance or tragedy to it. We don't know if Krypton is a society worth caring about or worth hating, and without any emotional meaning, it becomes nothing but a series of explosive action sequences. The first Superman movie implied arrogance by presenting Jor-El as a rational doomsayer and the council as stern-faced and quick to punish dissent. In a bizarre change, Man of Steel's council apparently believes him yet goes through the motions of holding a trial for Zod and sending him safely away from the planet. There are so many ways this could have been better. What if the council was planning to evacuate the "important" members of society first? What if the council was secretly working with Zod to weed out degenerative bloodlines, and Jor-El's was deemed one of the bloodlines that must be eradicated? Instead, fans have to rationalize the Krypton segment with narratives that were never depicted or hinted at, like the Downfall of the Decadent Society.

When you add to that the nonsensical characterizations and unnecessarily complicated plot in the rest of the movie, you get a typical Goyer story. "I must never reveal my powers!" *spends movie revealing powers* The movie is the very definition of a popcorn flick, a mindless action movie full of Snyder's "It's so genuine, it's subversive!" style.

Dacap
Jul 8, 2008

I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

You have more fun as a follower. But you make more money as a leader.



Cyborg has been cast for Batman/Superman

http://www.slashfilm.com/cyborg-in-batman-vs-superman/

He's a theatre actor named Ray Fisher

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

Hopefully he gets to say "It's the 'none of your drat business' alarm."

Myrddin_Emrys
Mar 27, 2007

by Hand Knit
And suddenly after the events of Zod, the world remembers it has super humans and metas and a 15 year reigning Bat guy in Gotham city.

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Toady posted:

Yep, Krypton is loving stupid. So stupid that it's difficult to consider that segment of the movie anything less than a waste. So stupid that Zod doesn't even jump into the swimming pool to secure the codex before initiating his coup, even though is plan was to control the bloodlines. Really basic gently caress-ups in the premise that make it impossible to care about.
[...]

The story of Krypton is important because it's one of Superman's three identities. Krypton's fall has no emotional weight because there's no comeuppance or tragedy to it. We don't know if Krypton is a society worth caring about or worth hating, and without any emotional meaning, it becomes nothing but a series of explosive action sequences. The first Superman movie implied arrogance by presenting Jor-El as a rational doomsayer and the council as stern-faced and quick to punish dissent. In a bizarre change, Man of Steel's council apparently believes him yet goes through the motions of holding a trial for Zod and sending him safely away from the planet. There are so many ways this could have been better. What if the council was planning to evacuate the "important" members of society first? What if the council was secretly working with Zod to weed out degenerative bloodlines, and Jor-El's was deemed one of the bloodlines that must be eradicated? Instead, fans have to rationalize the Krypton segment with narratives that were never depicted or hinted at, like the Downfall of the Decadent Society.

When you add to that the nonsensical characterizations and unnecessarily complicated plot in the rest of the movie, you get a typical Goyer story. "I must never reveal my powers!" *spends movie revealing powers* The movie is the very definition of a popcorn flick, a mindless action movie full of Snyder's "It's so genuine, it's subversive!" style.

I'm not one to be dismissive, but you seem not to have understood the film. I'd recommend reading it.

Getting mad at 'Goyer' and 'Snyder' (or 'Bay' and 'Lucas') does not count as reading. Proclaiming it 'confusing' and 'senseless' also betrays that you haven't formed an opinion yet.

Try being not-confused before posting. It helps.

hiddenriverninja
May 10, 2013

life is locomotion
keep moving
trust that you'll find your way

Dacap posted:

Cyborg has been cast for Batman/Superman

http://www.slashfilm.com/cyborg-in-batman-vs-superman/

He's a theatre actor named Ray Fisher


Why is DC pushing Cyborg as a heavy hitter?

Also call this movie Justice League already.

Dacap
Jul 8, 2008

I've been involved in a number of cults, both as a leader and a follower.

You have more fun as a follower. But you make more money as a leader.



hiddenriverninja posted:

Why is DC pushing Cyborg as a heavy hitter?



Because they want to use white guy Hal Jordan as Green Lantern instead of John Stewart; the Green Lantern who was used in the cartoons and other than him there's no other non-white characters in the "Big 7" Justice League.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

hiddenriverninja posted:

Why is DC pushing Cyborg as a heavy hitter?

Cyborg is the guy they can trot out to pretend like their casts are not 90% white guys, since every other choice they have is 100% no-name or fills the same superheroic identity as a white guy so they're going to use the white guy no matter what. (Even Flash now, thanks to the New Wally West.)

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I'm not one to be dismissive, but you seem not to have understood the film. I'd recommend reading it.

Getting mad at 'Goyer' and 'Snyder' (or 'Bay' and 'Lucas') does not count as reading. Proclaiming it 'confusing' and 'senseless' also betrays that you haven't formed an opinion yet.

Try being not-confused before posting. It helps.

This is subpar for you. A shame because this could have been fun. I doubt anyone else is up to it.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Toady posted:

This is subpar for you. A shame because this could have been fun. I doubt anyone else is up to it.

Up for what? Hbomberguy already dismantled you. You haven't actually rebutted him. I understand that you're willfully failing to understand how fiction works such that you're denying that plot elements are often implied rather than stated explicitly, but why should I care?

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

Ferrinus posted:

Up for what? Hbomberguy already dismantled you. You haven't actually rebutted him. I understand that you're willfully failing to understand how fiction works such that you're denying that plot elements are often implied rather than stated explicitly, but why should I care?

Old people in funny hats isn't implication of a corrupt and decadent society getting its comeuppance. People are applying a narrative cliche to add emotional weight because the film doesn't provide any on its own.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

Toady posted:

Old people in funny hats isn't implication of a corrupt and decadent society getting its comeuppance. People are applying a narrative cliche to add emotional weight because the film doesn't provide any on its own.

I believe it would be more accurate to say that the filmmaker applied that particular narrative cliche, unless you're saying that the old people wearing space miters was also implied by viewers of the film.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Toady posted:

Old people in funny hats isn't implication of a corrupt and decadent society getting its comeuppance. People are applying a narrative cliche to add emotional weight because the film doesn't provide any on its own.

See? You straight up don't have the chops to carry this out, either because of an honest and tragic inability to derive conclusions from evidence or because of an ulterior motive that causes you to be mega disingenuous. Do you want to convince people that you, Toady, didn't like the movie? Because you don't have to write fan fiction about Krypton's secret planetary exodus magic to do that, you can just say you didn't like the movie.

oshuaj
Jul 25, 2007


Costuming can't possibly communicate something to the viewer!!! It's just clothes!!!

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
Eh, there's definitely a sense in the tone of it that Krypton is not a healthy place before it starts blowing up. "Old men in funny hats" is sort of a familiar genre shorthand for this sort of thing- you see the leaders and they look wizened and inhuman and they're fussing over procedures and "We Cannot Do This Thing Because It Is Against Our Tradition" and so on. (See also: the Time Lords in Doctor Who, basically anyone in authority in the Star Wars movies, the Emperor in Dune, etc.)

I've only seen the movie once so I can't remember exactly how it played out, and like you may have gathered I'm not even a fan of this movie, but in terms of the plot conveying "these guys kinda suck", I got that easy.

The one thing I don't buy in terms of Zod's character is when he suddenly goes "This only ends when one of us dies!" and starts basically begging Superman to try and kill him, to the point of starting to laser-eye people in the crowd specifically so that Superman will have to snap his neck. Like, did he know that Kal-El has that ethical problem with killing enemies? Was this established in a scene I forgot, like some point on the station?

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


Maxwell Lord posted:

Like, did he know that Kal-El has that ethical problem with killing enemies? Was this established in a scene I forgot, like some point on the station?

The Kryptonians think it's notable (and pathetic) that he has morals at all. They learned about it when they scanned his brain on the ship, and Faora mentions it during the Smallville fight.

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

Ferrinus posted:

See? You straight up don't have the chops to carry this out, either because of an honest and tragic inability to derive conclusions from evidence or because of an ulterior motive that causes you to be mega disingenuous. Do you want to convince people that you, Toady, didn't like the movie? Because you don't have to write fan fiction about Krypton's secret planetary exodus magic to do that, you can just say you didn't like the movie.

I enjoyed it as a visceral popcorn movie that realistically depicted the consequences of super-powered fighting. This began as a discussion of the mishandling of the story elements. Fans started making poo poo up about what was in the movie--that Krypton was a corrupt society of decadence, technologically incapable of leaving the planet. When asked to point out where the film depicts that, the only thing actually in the film that has been singled out is one scene in which old people are wearing what is apparently Krypton's version of a suit and tie.

Not much would need to change for Man of Steel to deliver what you wish was there. The use of subtle visual language, like a shifty glance between council members, can create unease and suggest collusion outside of Jor-El's knowledge. Instead, we're not given anything to go on about the circumstances of their situation. Was it decadence that led them to harvest the core? Would they have died out if they hadn't? The movie flat-out doesn't tell us. On top of that, Krypton is clearly capable of space travel, because they fire the main villain into space and the protagonist gets sent to Earth in a homemade escape pod. This makes Krypton a nonsensical part of the story and very difficult to care about.

The lack of storytelling is a void that you're filling with conclusions you've drawn outside the film. When something can be made to line up with that conclusion, it gets called "evidence". Look, an old woman in a headdress! That fits my fan-fiction in which Krypton was a decadent society full of corrupt bureaucrats! That is some lazy-rear end storytelling.

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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

Toady posted:

I enjoyed it as a visceral popcorn movie that realistically depicted the consequences of super-powered fighting. This began as a discussion of the mishandling of the story elements. Fans started making poo poo up about what was in the movie--that Krypton was a corrupt society of decadence, technologically incapable of leaving the planet. When asked to point out where the film depicts that, the only thing actually in the film that has been singled out is one scene in which old people are wearing what is apparently Krypton's version of a suit and tie.

One: Krypton is run by a bunch of extravagantly-dressed old people, implying they have been in charge for a long time, making accusations of corruption more believable - it led me to conclude they were using their power to remain in power and not do anything particularly useful.

Two: Rigid caste system. There are no more organic births on Krypton, Kal being the first in a long time - the caste system's ridiculous effects on society are made extremely obvious through this. The Kryptonians hosed themselves

Three: Stupid caste system. Despite people being born with specific identities and purposes in place, it appears possible to transcend it and make a mockery of the whole thing if you bother to do some research or training. See here the scene where the scientist character outsmarts and defeats a bunch of military characters. Again, something is very wrong with Krypton.

Four: Jor El and Zod both agree with each other about how the old council is part of the problem that hosed the planet up and that, for reasons we don't particularly need to know but can be intuited by everything else that has happened, everyone on Krypton is already dead. However because of part Three, Zod is incapable of seeing beyond his own caste's purpose and seeing the big picture, AKA this entire system is loving everyone including himself. Since Jor is a smart scientist who is right about everybody being dead, I interpreted his to mean Jor is a smart scientist who is right about everybody being dead.

Five: To escape the planet Jor-El builds a spaceship for his son. This implies a world where escaping the planet is not as simple as using those ships we saw - they don't have enough fuel, propulsion, or can't withstand the vaccuum of space, or don't have the resources for keeping large groups of people alive during long space travel. Or they're so stupid they don't know how to use them. Any of these can be true because the film implies one of them has to be and then gets on with the actual plot.

Six: Krypton as a whole is so stupid that they don't think to just lock themselves in the phantom zone and then free themselves at an indeterminate time, implying they are loving stupid, and are trapped in their ways so badly they will punish a person at a trial rather than scrambling for safety - this might have been what Jor was predicting, people not wanting to leave krypton or break its rules. They probably wouldn't have tried to leave Krypton even if they knew it was dying, which they probably don't. Who would tell them?

Seven: Because it is a suparman film and you already know krypton is dead when the film begins, so why not take the time to focus on things that are more thematic to the story than rehashing the hows and whys of the planet's destruction? Why not, since we all know krpyton is hosed from fade in, explore Krypton's military, its technology designs, its high society?

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