|
Blastedhellscape posted:As a comic book reading kid I always avoided Superman because he seemed boring and indestructible. Then I started watching the Bruce Timm animated series and really enjoyed it. I think the main reason I liked it so much was that they toned down Superman's powers a lot. He seemed to really be struggling to lift heavy objects and when super powered guys punched him it looked like it hurt. The trouble is that people consistently avoid the idea that Superman is a metaphorical character. Why does his suit not burn up? Because he's a loving cartoon - the impossible ideal self that the Clark Kents of the world wish they could be. Superman operates according to dream logic, or cartoon logic, or whatever you want to call it. What's bullshit is when people come up with these pseudo-scientific explanations for this stuff, like he has a quantum-particle midichlorian aura that keeps his suit laundry-fresh. Everyone should just say "how can he do that? it's impossible" and leave it at that. Superman's 'one weakness' is kryptonite, but what good films like Superman Returns understood is that kryptonite is just a metaphor for nihilism. Keep in mind that it's radioactive, and first appeared in comics around 1949 - not long after Hiroshima, in other words. Superman's weakness, given that he is a cartoon, is the blunt horror of reality. He's like Tinkerbell in the sense that he can only live if you clap your hands and believe in him 'irrationally' - and it's cynical disbelief that defeats him. Superman isn't powered by midichlorians - kryptonite is. Zod is an interesting character because he is an evil cartoon. So while Superman 'is' American idealism, Zod 'is' fascism (or something along those lines). So, while there will undoubtedly be much punching in this movie, the punching merely represents a more abstract philosophical argument. The course of the battle is determined by which argument is more compelling, with the characters becoming dirtied and bloodied accordingly.
|
#
¿
Dec 17, 2012 07:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:48 |
|
|
That series of pages often gets trotted out as an example of how great and noble Superman should be - but its morality is almost-literally straight out of an episode of 24 in which Jack Bauer successfully tortures an alleged terrorist(?) by forcing him to watch the slow execution-murder of his entire family. Surprise! Their deaths were simulated using special effects, so nobody was really hurt ho ho ho. Of course, the implicit message is that we can and will violate you if we want to. You are at our mercy, as even your very perceptions are under our control. The only way to be secure is to submit to our power, and you should thank us for being so generous as to allow you to exist. It's disgustingly smug. "I don't believe I violated you, because the effects of my violation weren't permanent." SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Dec 22, 2012 |
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2012 20:53
|
|
|
Tender Bender posted:This is true, which is why as others have said I prefer the issue remain unaddressed. When Superman says "Yeah, you'll escape, and I'll catch you again, because that's how I want it, I am that unstoppable symbol of truth and justice," I just imagine all the people whose loved ones die in a catastrophe after a supervillain escapes, so that Superman can feel Super-awesome. The "supervillains constantly escaping/returning" thing works the same way: they are not actually-existing people, but themselves symbols of entropy, corruption and whatever. There's a point where the writers try to have it both ways and the logic breaks down. When Lex Luthor continually re-emerges as the personification of singularity-worshiping internet libertarianism - something that many people failed to read in Superman Returns - he's not just a man. He is just as much of an ineradicable idea. This means that Superman's refusal to kill Lex on the basis of his individual human right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' ultimately enables free-market capitalism. Lex's continued existence is an indictment of Superman's values, an unintended but inevitable product of those values. When Superman saves Lex, he is ultimately preserving the capitalist system. The system will inevitably transgress and exploit, says Superman, so he will simply intervene in the worst, catastrophic scenarios. That's bizarrely pragmatic behaviour for the personification of idealism. The idea of creating an alternative to the existing system (perhaps sending Lex to the guillotine) is beyond him.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2012 03:28
|
|
|
Gyges posted:Assuming you can't kill an idea, doesn't that just mean that whether or not superman saves Lex the idea lives on anyway? You could say that the character of Superman is, himself, conflicted in that way. He is always held back by his belief that Lex is still a human being with thoughts and emotions, who had a mother who loved him, and so-on. This causes him to overlook Lex's actually-relevant, supervillainous actions. It's in that sense that Superman is often too liberal. Contrast the treatment of Lex with that of Michael C. Hall's character in Gamer, a reprehensible bastard who absolutely should be killed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2012 04:20
|
|
|
massive spider posted:Its been a while since I've seen superman returns but I was thinking the other day how weird it is that its kinda, sorta about 9/11 but never really goes anywhere with it. I mean the whole set up of the movie is that superman has been Away for a few years and in the intervening period Things Have Changed, gotten more cynical ect. But then there's not really any major point being made I can see. I know this was talked about a fair bit when it came out especially with the opening plane saving scene but it doesn't seem to get brought up much in discussion of the movie now. It's like the entire point of the movie, and the 9/11 imagery recurs throughout - most prominently during the climax of the thing. The villain of the film is cynicism personified.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 29, 2012 22:38
|
|
|
Dirk Digglet posted:Superman dealing with being the only one of his species left/feeling like an outsider/finding a place for himself in a world that he feels alienated from are all good directions for a Superman story to go. They just don't work in the context of the Donner films, and they definitely don't work by having superman stalk lois lane for an hour and lift a big rock for 20 minutes. Instead he should stalk the latest series of figurines and action figures, depicting such characters as Lois Lane, and then lift them over his head in triumphant display of all the sweet merch he acquired.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 14, 2013 13:07
|
|
|
Burkion posted:Wow, that is a dumb video. I'm not quite sure how to articulate how and why it fails on every point, without just summing it up as "Some DoucheBag Blathering On About Things He Doesn't Understand." He wrote Chronicle; he knows more about superheros than you do.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 14, 2013 07:08
|
|
|
Gatts posted:Wasn't that essentially the first half of Hancock? Which in my opinion is amongst Ang Lee's Hulk levels of best superhero movie flawed as it is. The best superhero movies are Hancock, Hulk, The Twilight Saga: Twilight, Halloween 2007, Starcrash, Superman Returns, and Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. (Special mention - Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance). (I'm not sure if I'd categorize The Dark Knight, Kick-rear end and Watchmen as superhero movies. They're more like 'dudes in costumes' movies.) SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 19:47 on May 3, 2013 |
|
#
¿
May 3, 2013 19:44
|
|
|
ghostwritingduck posted:The ending of Superman isn't bad within the one movie, since it can be seen as the the logical progression of Clark learning powers throughout the movie. It does sabotage the future movies though when you wonder why he doesn't use the new found power. Naturally, comix dudes are getting caught up in the mechanics of time travel and missing the actual point of the imagery, and Lois' final lines of dialogue. "I think he really cares about you." "Clark? Of Course he does. "No, not Clark..." "Oh, well, Superman cares about everybody, Jimmy. But uh, who knows? Maybe someday, you know, if he's lucky..." The point of the story is that Clark loves Lois so much that he would move heaven and Earth, toiling in obscurity, just to occupy a second of her thoughts. The big twist is that Lois knows that Clark loves her. She doesn't even think about it - "of course he does" - but she doesn't realize that his love is an impossible love that's universal in scope, such that his entire world revolves around her. He'd defy God if that's what it takes. After all, Clark does look a bit like Su... naw, that's silly. The struggle isn't to stop the bombs but to resolve a deadlock between the universal and the particular - loving this particular person as the universal while at the same time loving 'everybody' to the same degree he loves Lois. This is the ultimate task, and it's yet to be achieved at the end of the film. But maybe someday, you know, if he's lucky...
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2013 20:54
|
|
|
DFu4ever posted:I think you need to re-watch Avengers, because at worst its a decently shot film. At it's best it looks fantastic. But then again, we all have different tastes. It's really badly shot, to the point that there's a marked difference in quality between the live-action stuff and the all-CG animated sequences, noticable even to people who don't normally comment on the cinematography. "What’s really important is storytelling. None of it matters if it doesn’t support the story. I thought The Avengers was an appalling film. They’d shoot from some odd angle and I’d think, why is the camera there? Oh, I see, because they spent half a million on the set and they have to show it off. It took me completely out of the movie. I was driven bonkers by that illogical form of storytelling.” -Wally Pfister
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2013 21:09
|
|
|
Toady posted:It's not autistic nerds getting caught up in the mechanics of time travel. Regular people are the ones who think it's dumb. The symbolism behind the ending doesn't take away from it being a stupid way to end the movie. Actually, it rules and everyone loves it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2013 21:53
|
|
|
Toady posted:You can do better than this. Actually, I don't have to. Superman the movie had a rad, smart ending that continues to be enjoyed by audiences worldwide.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2013 22:02
|
|
|
What - am I supposed to believe that this superman is, like, invulnerable now?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2013 23:01
|
|
|
neck snap neck snap neck snap neck snap neck snap neck snap Untagged spoilers below, because we're on page 115 or whatever:The key to this film is the final flashback shot, of the boy posing in front of the dog: the dog is panting and happy. This is a movie that takes seriously that Superman is an actual posthuman superman - that we are on the level of dogs to him, while he himself is still only a child. This isn't cynicism though. Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead presented a love of animals, a willingness to sacrifice oneself for a dog, as the highest expression of goodness. The young girl in that film goes to save a dog, and ends up compromising the security of the shopping mall - pissing off zombie survival nerds everywhere by affirming their slavish devotion to capitalism. It's the image of a boy playing with his dog that tells Mr. Kent that his son is going to be a decent god. Because though he himself is a dog, his son was raised by dogs and loves them. It's specifically this image of Clark, posing for the dog in his symbolic cape with the belief that the dog will understand, that inspires Mr. Kent's final symbolic gesture. (And again, tacticians are saying 'I'd never rescue a dog... I have to defend the shopping mall...') The shopping mall - the idea of living in a shopping mall - is the source of the product placement in Smallville. Yes, IHOP probably paid to have logo in there, but is it not profoundly sad to see that this kid has gone only so far in 20-odd years? Superman loves people, but knows that the system is hosed. And yep, the image of Zod's ships landing outside the Kansas farmhouse is taken straight from Minority Report, in which product placement is similarly invasive. The dream in which Kansas explodes is taken straight from Terminator 2 and directly links Zod with Cyberdyne's Skynet. And of course the film is loosely structured around time travel: the metaphorical idea that Krypton is a future Earth and that Kal is sent 'back' to prevent it from happening 'again'. The destruction of Metropolis is based around around the invasion of hive-minded resource-hungry aliens in Independence Day (not to mention the rescue of the dog), there's the obvious reference to The Matrix and its sequels, and this is just to name a few. The crashed ship in Antarctica covers everything from The Thing to Alien Versus Predator. The point is that IHOP, skynet, the aliens, The Gap, the machines, the thing, SEARS - these are all variable ways of expressing the same concept. Zod is not an enemy of SEARS but an extension of it, a product of it. These economic concerns lead to the big point that you can't stop what's happening in New York unless you also stop what's happening in India. The whole area around the Indian Ocean is presented (not too pejoratively) as the rear end in a top hat of the world. Superman's defeat of the robot thing links the image of Fleischer Superman punching the laser beam to ID4's climactic "UP YOURS!" The key detail is that this takes place in the ocean, after the early scene shows us that 'the world is too big', like an infinite ocean, unless we can imagine an island to orient ourselves. Superman imagines Kansas. The world imagines Metropolis. When Zod has lost all bearing, he finds purchase in the symbol of his clenched fist. This is a direct callback to the island that the zombie survivors try to reach in Dawn of the Dead - but the message here, as there, is that this is a mistake. The island is a starting point, but you can't shut out the ocean. You can't stop what's happening in New York unless you also stop what's happening in India. So, to the question of how to stop it. Zod's vocal love of his duty is a direct reference to Kantian ethics: "there is always something sublime about pronouncing a judgement that defines our duty: in it, I "elevate an object to the dignity of the Thing" (Lacan's definition of sublimation). The full acceptance of this paradox also compels us to reject any reference to "duty" as an excuse: "I know this is heavy and can be painful, but what can I do, this is my duty…" The standard motto of ethical rigor is "There is no excuse for not accomplishing one's duty!"; although Kant's Du kannst, denn du sollst! ("You can, because you must!") seems to offer a new version of this motto, he implicitly complements it with its much more uncanny inversion: "There is no excuse for accomplishing one's duty!" The reference to duty as the excuse to do our duty should be rejected as hypocritical; suffice it to recall the proverbial example of a severe sadistic teacher who subjects his pupils to merciless discipline and torture. Of course, his excuse to himself (and to others) is: "I myself find it hard to exert such pressure on the poor kids, but what can I do-it's my duty!" The more pertinent example is that of a Stalinist politician who loves mankind, but nonetheless performs horrible purges and executions; his heart is breaking while he is doing it, but he cannot help it, it's his Duty towards the Progress of Humanity..." (link) Superman and Zod are basically the same character, but what sets them apart is that Superman makes no excuses, because the flipside to Zod's 'I'm doing my duty' is Faora's casual sadism. This leads to the point that Superman's killing of Zod is inexcusable, in the sense that he alone takes on the responsibility of formulating his duty. He doesn't turn to some other agent for blame. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jun 18, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2013 20:26
|
|
|
WampaLord posted:The Krypton opening part suffered from Star Wars Prequel "Let's shove as much CGI in the frame as we can" syndrome. Right down to including an animal for him to ride in this land of spaceships and high technology. See: theme of kindness to animals vs. tactical realism.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2013 00:03
|
|
|
porfiria posted:Hey SMG, can you elaborate on how your reading ties into the Kryptonian caste system vs. Jor-El's vision for Kal? In The Terminator, the menacing robot is really an expression of Sarah Connor's resignation to being trapped in that poo poo waitress job. Man Of Steel references those films directly with the dream sequence, and indirectly with the guy in IHOP. The idea is that Kryptonians have transformed themselves into sexless robots (probably not literally asexual, but obviously unable procreate). This is because they've gone full-on transhumanist with the singularity and whatever. The result is that, far from being liberated into the infinite cyberspace, they're grown decadent - Nietzsche's 'Last Man'. Zizek's article ""No Sex, Please, We're Post Human!" is essential reading, since it covers most if the film's main themes: "[Does] the full formulation of the genome effectively foreclose subjectivity and/or sexual difference? When, on June 26 2000, the completion of a "working draft" of the human genome was publicly announced, the wave of commentaries about the ethical, medical, etc. consequences of this breakthrough rendered manifest the first paradox of genome, the immediate identity of the opposite attitudes: on the one hand, the idea is that we can now formulate the very positive identity of a human being, what s/he "objectively is," what predetermines his/her development; on the other hand, knowing the complete genome - the "instruction book for human life," as it is usually referred to - opens up the way for the technological manipulation, enabling us to "reprogram" our (or, rather, others's) bodily and psychic features. This new situation seems to signal the end of the whole series of traditional notions: theological creationism (comparing human with animal genomes makes clear that human beings evolved from animals - we share more than 99 percent of our genome with the chimpanzee), sexual reproduction (rendered superfluous by the prospect of cloning), and, ultimately, psychology or psychoanalysis - does genome not realize Freud's old dream of translating psychic processes into objective chemical processes? Here, however, one should be attentive to the formulation which repeatedly occurs in most of the reactions to the identification of the genome: "The old adage that every disease with the exception of trauma has a genetic component is really going to be true." Although this statement is meant as the assertion of a triumph, one should nonetheless focus on the exception that it concedes, the impact of a trauma. How serious and extensive is this limitation? The first thing to bear in mind here is that "trauma" is NOT simply a shorthand term for the unpredictable chaotic wealth of environment influences, so that we are lead to the standard proposition according to which the identity of a human being results from the interaction between his/her genetic inheritance and the influence of his/her environment ("nature versus nurture"). It is also not sufficient to replace this standard proposition with the more refined notion of the "embodied mind" developed by Francisco Varela: a human being is not just the outcome of the interaction between genes and environment as the two opposed entities; s/he is rather the engaged embodied agent who, instead of "relating" to his/her environs, mediates-creates his/her life-world - a bird lives in a different environment than a fish or a man... However, "trauma" designates a shocking encounter which, precisely, DISTURBS this immersion into one's life-world, a violent intrusion of something which doesn't fit it. Of course, animals can also experience traumatic ruptures: say, is the ants' universe not thrown off the rails when a human intervention totally subverts their environs? However, the difference between animals and men is crucial here: for animals, such traumatic ruptures are the exception, they are experienced as a catastrophe which ruins their way of life; for humans, on the contrary, the traumatic encounter is a universal condition, the intrusion which sets in motion the process of "becoming human." Man is not simply overwhelmed by the impact of the traumatic encounter - as Hegel put it, s/he is able to "tarry with the negative," to counteract its destabilizing impact by spinning out intricate symbolic cobwebs. This is the lesson of both psychoanalysis and the Jewish-Christian tradition: the specific human vocation does not rely on the development of man's inherent potentials (on the awakening of the dormant spiritual forces OR of some genetic program); it is triggered by an external traumatic encounter, by the encounter of the Other's desire in its impenetrability. In other words (and pace Steve Pinker), there is no inborn "language instinct": there are, of course, genetic conditions that have to be met if a living being is to be able to speak; however, one actually starts to speak, one enters the symbolic universe, only in reacting to a traumatic jolt - and the mode of this reacting, i.e. the fact that, in order to cope with a trauma, we symbolize, is NOT "in our genes."" http://www.lacan.com/nosex.htm
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2013 02:00
|
|
|
What makes the NECK SNAP! fun is the fact that Lois and Jor kill the gently caress out of people. In a supreme example of the film's 'show don't tell' policy, Jor literally appears as a god-spirit to guide human Lois through the ship by literally pointing the way and hoping that she trusts him. But his powers are limited to the confines of the ship, so he must instruct his son the break the ship open and take over. That whole action sequence is characterization.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2013 00:24
|
|
|
Unoriginal Name posted:The focus on the armor when Zod sheds it has me thinking that Luthor will use parts of it for his power armor. It isn't a plot point. The focus is not on the armor but on the act of shedding it, which occurs right after Zod blocks out the world by concentrating on his clenched fist. It's at this same point that he gains the ability to hover. It's an unstated 'armor was holding you back' moment, and minor reversal of The Matrix's assertion that 'seeing the code' will grant you superpowers. In this case, seeing the code (via x-ray vision) is terrifying and disorienting, and power comes from anchoring yourself around some symbol (a fist, your mother's voice, etc.). It's pretty rad that the flight thing is never really explained in plot terms. You just see weird force emanating from his body.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2013 02:45
|
|
|
WarLocke posted:No, I meant the shot of him floating backwards out of the ship with his arms out, in an on-the-cross type pose. Jor-El just told him Lois is in that malfunctioning escape pod and he takes a good 5-10 seconds to slow-mo float away before actually going to save her It's not a tactical thing. Whatever the reference, the gesture is directed at his father. He's facing towards him the whole time: the pose is a response to 'you can save her, you can save all of them.' Jor can't save her, because he's confined to the ship's system. Jor needs to ask Kal to break the wall, and both he and the film pause on the moment where he leaves his father behind.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2013 04:07
|
|
|
The death of Zod should be considered a twist for the fact that it reveals Kal was 'holding back', to some degree, for much of the fight. This retroactively explains the length of the fight sequence. Kal likely could have killed him much sooner, but was trying to avoid that outcome the whole time. It's important to remember that Mr. Kent preached nonviolence so that Kal could learn to withstand people's initial fear and hatred. The decision to kill Zod was based on the fact that he consciously refused to ever stop hatin'. PaganGoatPants posted:Also Lois shows up out of nowhere. That took me out of it. No way possible she could be there. Although it hurt your immersion, Lois appears at the end to perform the important gesture of comforting Superman, and in fact risking her life to do so. The fact that she appears at all is much more important than how she found the right building (google maps. Who cares?).
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2013 00:44
|
|
|
The Jenny rescue scene is easily the best scene in the movie, and is intercut with Superman loving up the robot rear end in a top hat for a reason.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2013 23:58
|
|
|
tliil posted:I thought having the non-superpowered characters "helping out" in the Avengers was kind of lame at the time, but the idea has really grown on me. Why shouldn't civilian casualties be minimized in a super fight? Especially if you're trying to tell a story about Superman whose superpower is basically "always does good". This isn't an accident. There are multiple scenes that focus on the US military bombing the poo poo out of its own people with 'collateral damage'. The film makes a point that it's not possible to prevent civilian casualties in that kind of a situation. Bombing Smallville's main street in a precision strike against the bad guy probably kills several innocent people, and merely renders Faora unconscious. While both films are obviously fictional, Man of Steel is attacking Avengers' dumb fantasy of war without casualties. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jun 23, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2013 01:52
|
|
|
I'd say it's the opposite: acting global, while thinking local. Superman saves everyone, blowing up the robot In India, in order to defend Kansas and the values taught by his adoptive parents. [This is opposed to the "think global, act local" logic of Sears having a Smallville branch.]
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2013 02:40
|
|
|
It was a pretty poor decision to reimagine the Kents as hipsters, growing crops on a farm as hipsters are wont to do.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2013 07:46
|
|
|
timeandtide posted:The scene rules because it's a continuation of the Pa Kent sacrifice scene. People are like "Fishburne doesn't even know Superman is there! He's not inspirational at all!" missing the point that Fishburne's innate goodness inspires Superman.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2013 17:30
|
|
|
Unoriginal Name posted:My problem isn't that he isn't comic book Superman, my problem is that he has only the vaguest of motivations. Save the planet because they sheltered me as a child and then....? He could decide humans should worship him as a god-emporer in the next movie and it wouldn't be particularly out of character except for the fact that he's apparently reclusive. The hell are you talking about? The entire movie shows either what his parents want him to do with humanity or the interactions with people that lead him to make his own choices.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2013 04:53
|
|
|
When the ID4 aliens die, nobody cry. But when Zod dies, everybody cry!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2013 21:22
|
|
|
BrianWilly posted:Saying that Zod had "no choice" to be a zealot is overstating things a bit. He was crafted by his environment but so is every other criminal that ever existed. Jor-El and Lara were genetically-crafted as well, but aren't considered robots. Zod talks a big game about how he was programmed to serve Krypton with every molecule of his being, but you have to consider that Zod is not just a monster by human standards but an aberration on Kryptonian society as well; they considered him a felon and locked him up, after all. All of them rebelled against Krypton society, but how could they have made that choice if every choice was programmed into them? They were built with a pre-set biology perfected for a pre-set roles, but at some point their own will, and how they themselves interpret those roles, come into play. Zod claiming that his every action serves Krypton sounds just like every other self-rationalizing justification from every other zealot that ever was. This is exactly the case. The film begins with the premise that krypton sucks because of the decadence. Jor and Zod have competing ideas about how to deal with it (different types of revolution), but they're ultimately not that different. That's probably what makes Zod relatively sympathetic, even though he is insane - unable to break free from his pathological motivations. It isn't until he sheds his armor that he chooses evil as an authentic ethical decision - a choice he makes knowing full well that he will be killed for it. This follows the same throughline as Fishburne's, Costner's, and Meloni's dramatic self-sacrifices. Part of what makes the violence of the end understandable is that everyone knew that the very appearance of a superman would be destructive, causing massive societal upheaval. The Kents make a point of trying to teach their son the value of a working-class lifestyle before this can happen, in order to help direct this destructive potential. But everyone knew poo poo was going to go down. People have noted the many comparisons to The matrix and its sequels here. But Man of Steel is actually a rebuttal. "Does, in Matrix Revolutions, Neo really turn into a Christ figure? It May look so: at the very end of his duel with Smith, he turns into (another) Smith so that, when he dies, Smith (all the Smiths) is (are) also destroyed... However, a closer looks renders visible a key difference: Smith is a proto-Jewish figure, an obscene intruder who multiplies like rats, who runs amok and disturbs the harmony of Humans and Matrix-Machines, so that his destruction enables a (temporary) class truce. What dies with Neo is this Jewish intruder who brings conflict and imbalance; in Christ, [on] the contrary, God himself becomes man so that, with the death of Christ, this man (ecce homo) , God (of beyond) himself also dies. The true "Christological" version of the Matrix trilogy would thus entail a radically different scenario: Neo should have been a Matrix program rendered human, a direct human embodiment of the Matrix, so that, when he dies, the Matrix itself destroys itself." (zizek) Isn't Superman, in this film, this embodiment of the system who destroys it from the inside? "I'm as American as it gets," he says, while smashing US drones. Though he doesn't literally die in the film, he destroys the last traces of Krypton and chooses humility. There's no 'balance' here. Krypton isn't really harmonious, and neither is anything on Earth (hence the dude trapped in IHOP, the 'slave' machine over India, and Lois being pushed into a shack). Superman's power here is to create imbalance, to destroy and reshape. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 25, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2013 22:15
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:True, but it hasn't really be trivialized for entertainment purposes like in jivjov's examples. I'm now curious as well when a film will be able to suggest that the 9/11 hijackers were alien infiltrators attempting to destroy key planetary defense centers in advance of a full invasion, and the Flight 93 heroes were undercover time-traveling agents who had to let the world believe they died in the crash to secure history while they were actually chronoported back to the 26th century. They already did that movie; it had reptilian alien jews and was called Loose Change.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2013 13:01
|
|
|
Maybe dudes haven't seen Watchmen, in which the destruction of New York is foreshadowed by a blimp slowwwwly veering towards the twin towers in the background of a shot. That's the same film that has a cgi simulation/recreation of the Zapruder film that pulls back to reveal Zapruder himself, with his camera. We get a shot of 'the vietnam war' recreated entirely with bad greenscreen and Apocalypse Now references. The same film is referenced here, in association with Zod. Snyder knows exactly what he's doing here, with this imagery of ash-covered New Yorkers fleeing in terror from collapsing buildings. He's created a pop-art collage of images sourced from everything from art films to comics to photojournalism to Independence Day. That's what he does.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2013 16:35
|
|
|
WarLocke posted:I'm not even sure what you're arguing anymore. You point is only not dumb and bad in an alternate universe where the south won the civil war and dogs can talk. Actually, no, it doesn't even make any loving sense in the dogfederacy. Like loving Green Zone with Matt Damon would still exist in a world where Iraq was never invaded because wars have always existed really if you think about it! They would just set it in annexed Canada and Man Dogman would search for kibbles instead of WMDs.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 00:51
|
|
|
Since Superman comics have already presented the definitive and objective simulation of buildings falling down, as validated by structural engineers, it stands to reason that 9/11 was a reference to Superman. Also, the part with the matrix pod-babies was not a reference to The Matrix because Superman comics preceded The Matrix by decades. Henry Cavil does not actually appear in the film because he was not born at the time Action Comics #1 debuted. Etc. The film simply shows us the real Superman. Superman has always been like this. Superman exists and has always existed as he does here. We are just seeing more clearly what he was actually like. It stands to reason that 9/11 itself was not a reference to 9/11. The footage replayed in the news simply depicted what buildings falling down look like, and so could have easily been substituted with comic book panels or clips from Die Hard that are all exactly identical in meaning. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jun 28, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 01:12
|
|
|
Toady posted:I'm arguing that an allusion requires artistic intent and awareness of the target. You are not equipped to gauge artist intent.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 03:19
|
|
|
Ash-covered New Yorkers flee in terror from collapsing buildings: "Actually, a couple of people have said once Zod attacks there’s not a lot of humour in it. Well, it just didn’t seem appropriate, people cutting jokes during 9/11 or something like that." -David Goyer I, and many other people, knew this before ever bothering to google for an interview - because of the power of literacy! However, since many folks are not equipped to gauge author intent, I'll explain that I've intentionally implied that they are illiterate with this and the previous sentence. Also, the first sentence of this post is an intentional reference to 9/11 - though the World Trade Center was, intentionally, not specifically mentioned by me.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 03:36
|
|
|
Rhyno posted:SMG, did you enjoy the film? NO
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 03:52
|
|
|
Toady posted:Pretty sure I can say that Armageddon isn't a 9/11 movie. That's a safe bet but, given your track record, you really shouldn't be certain of anything without confirmation from an outside source. Because you're not equipped to gauge artist intent.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 04:26
|
|
|
Toady posted:What track record are you referring to? I always believed Man of Steel was intentionally invoking some 9/11 imagery. I jumped in when some people started claiming pre-9/11 movies like Armageddon "became about" 9/11. "When we hear how the bombings were a totally unexpected shock, how the unimaginable Impossible happened, one should recall the other defining catastrophe from the beginning of the XXth century, that of Titanic: it was also a shock, but the space for it was already prepared in ideological fantasizing, since Titanic was the symbol of the might of the XIXth century industrial civilization. Does the same not hold also for these bombings? Not only were the media bombarding us all the time with the talk about the terrorist threat; this threat was also obviously libidinally invested — just recall the series of movies from Escape From New York to Independence Day. Therein resides the rationale of the often-mentioned association of the attacks with the Hollywood disaster movies: the unthinkable which happened was the object of fantasy, so that, in a way, America got what it fantasized about, and this was the greatest surprise. One should therefore turn around the standard reading according to which, the WTC explosions were the intrusion of the Real which shattered our illusory Sphere: quite on the contrary, it is prior to the WTC collapse than we lived in our reality, perceiving the Third World horrors as something which is not effectively part of our social reality, as something which exists (for us) as a spectral apparition on the (TV) screen — and what happened on September 11 is that this screen fantasmatic apparition entered our reality. It is not that reality entered our image: the image entered and shattered our reality (i.e., the symbolic coordinates which determine what we experience as reality). The fact that, after September 11, the opening of many "of the blockbuster" movies with scenes which bear a resemblance to the WTC collapse (large buildings on fire or under attack, terrorist actions…) was postponed (or the films were even shelved), is thus to be read as the "repression" of the fantasmatic background responsible for the impact of the WTC collapse. Of course, the point is not to play a pseudo-postmodern game of reducing the WTC collapse to just another media spectacle, reading it as a catastrophy version of the snuff porno movies; the question we should have asked ourselves when we stared at the TV screens on September 11 is simply: WHERE DID WE ALREADY SEE THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN?" (zizek)
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 04:43
|
|
|
Toady posted:The argument I was responding to was about assigning intent to a filmmaker. For example, there are several political interpretations of Nolan's Batman films, especially The Dark Knight Rises, despite Nolan's insistence that none of the films are intended to be political and that TDKR was making no such allusions (and in fact was written before Occupy Wall Street). In my opinion, what evocativeness the film does have is pattern-seeking on the part of the viewer. This is true only because imagery of Jacobin Terror transposed onto the modern day goes well beyond Occupy Wall Street. Nolan is cagey because when he says his film's are 'apolitical' he does not mean that they don't refer to actual events, but that he strives to depoliticize his films into generalized complaints about actual events, so that Dark Knight 3 shakes its head at the state of things, but refuses to 'take sides'. Nolan: “The notion of economic fairness creeps into the film . . . I don’t feel there’s a left or right perspective in the film. What is there is just an honest assessment or honest exploration of the world we live in – things that worry us.” Oh course, trying to be apolitical, claiming neutrality, is an obvious ideological obfuscation, though Nolan's strength is that he admits as much (see the unsatisfying, hosed-up ending for Inception's hosed-up protagonist.) Like Snyder, Nolan did not accidentally have his villain try to smash a highjacked vehicle full of Fear into the side of a building.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 08:47
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:Who gives a poo poo about you? I do! Now what?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 20:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:48 |
|
|
Sir Kodiak posted:Whether it's comfortable or not is open to interpretation. If the distinction is that it's not "artistic" interpretation then you're just begging the question of intention being relevant to the discussion of art. 
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2013 22:01
|
|