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John Wick of Dogs posted:Rorschach hates and beats up cops, that's how you can tell he's right wing Funnily enough, that liberterian (lol my phone autocorrected this to lolberterian) Ammon Bundy apparently supports BLM because he considers the real threat to be the cops, not antifa. ...no, really, it's true
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Jul 30, 2020 21:14
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Grendels Dad posted:Is his goal to end crime at the end of the movie, though? I'm actually not quite sure what his goal even is at that point. The movie is called 'Batman Begins' and he doesn't seem finished beginning at the end. Since he spent the climax of the movie fighting ninjas with a water evaporator-based fear weapon, I'm not quite sure Nolan's Batman is all that concerned with crime after that. His dad's methods were already validated by Liam Neeson, if you take BB in a vacuum it's actually pretty puzzling why Batman swings away to beat up the Joker. Another of the fun double-meanings in the film is that Batman's infamous "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" line is not just a callback to when Bruce pulls Neeson from the temple fire. It's more specifically a reference the earlier scene where Bruce and Liam Neeson discuss Bruce's father: "Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding. Your parents' death was not your fauIt... It was your father's. Anger does not change the fact that your father failed to act!" So what's going on in the subtext is that Bruce has decided to let his father die and not continue his legacy, in the same way that he is currently rejecting Ras' fascist deal about executing criminals. Both father-figures are viewed as failures, so Bruce's taking his own path - which is basically the thing where he burns down the enemy temple and if people die, they die. There's a direct link to Batfleck's weird logic of just letting people get blown up by grenades. Collateral damage. It's no coincidence that the "I don't have to save you" thing culminates in the destruction of the Wayne-funded public transit system. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 30, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 21:21
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:It's no coincidence that the "I don't have to save you" thing culminates in the destruction of the Wayne-funded public transit system. Huh. Also, his dad's "temple" gets burned, but he will rebuild it with his own adjustments. Neat.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:25
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Grendels Dad posted:Huh. Also, his dad's "temple" gets burned, but he will rebuild it with his own adjustments. Neat. It's a pretty logical flow into the next film, where he continues on his path of secretly working with the police to extrajudicially eliminate organized crime - and how he retires from superheroism once Gotham becomes a miniature police state under the Dent Act. Batman's goal is that police state. He loves cops, and just wants to do away with "corruption".
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Jul 30, 2020 21:34
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Makes sense, a good cop was the first guy to be nice to him after his parents got shot. Also, that cop was the non-Leon cop version of Gary Oldman.
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Jul 30, 2020 21:36
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Batman Begins is such a weird movie. Like, there's the part where Gotham has been economically destroyed, and the Waynes response is to try to beat it with socialism - by building a mass-transit system - but of course the entire system uses Wayne tower as a hub. So it's like this really sly point that even when rich people try to help they center it on themselves and their own power. There's all kinds of stuff like that, Batman goes and lives as a poor guy and then decides that the best way to fight crime is to beat people up dressed as a bat. He spends enough money to help like 10k poor families in order to buy a hotel to present his "false" playboy identity. Weird, weird, weird. He only wants to beat up the mob and corrupt police and is very specific about that in Begins and Dark Knight. He doesn't even want to bother with The Joker because he just sees him as some dude and not the power behind that is actually creating the problems. Begins basically has Bruce as a liberal that went to Africa and took some pictures in a village and is right on the edge of becoming leftist because he sees the problem as systemic and not the fault of poor people, but he still sees it as the bogeyman of the "mob" being the issue rather than capitalism itself. Then he figures it out in DKR and decides to use all his money to help poor people by giving them all free utilities instead of being Batman but gets hyper scared about it at the last minute and just gives up on everything until he meets a woman that turns him on. At least it finally ends with him deciding to give up all his stuff and just chill with a woman.
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Jul 30, 2020 22:04
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Grendels Dad posted:Makes sense, a good cop was the first guy to be nice to him after his parents got shot. Also, that cop was the non-Leon cop version of Gary Oldman. Who turned into a bad cop by rises.
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Jul 30, 2020 22:05
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Cheap energy wouldn't solve the issues anyways, because where'd the money for the reactor come from if not the Chinese sweatshop workers who produce Waynetech goods?
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Jul 30, 2020 22:14
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The Cameo posted:Self-proclamation does not make it so, though. I'd argue that anyone who needs a movie to outright state "murder and betrayal is bad, okay? DON'T DO MURDER AND BETRAYAL, I AM VERY CLEAR ABOUT THIS" or else it's a moral failure that proves the inherent evilness of the creator is probably a lovely leftist and more likely, as SMG pointed out, ideologically isn't a leftist at all since they're asking a product in a market to dictate some moral guidance into the audience rather than treat the audience with an ounce of respect. That's straight neoliberalism on the level of "Goldman Sachs put a PRIDE flag out during Pride Month, they're such a good company, and ~so progressive~". They don't need a movie to give them morals. They just want movies that will provide social validation of their personal psychic repression. They don't want instruction, they want to feed their own pre-existing sense of validation. Any anti-capitalist sentiment they espouse will be in front of a stack of Funko Pops of all their favorite Disney characters. I guess he's their Rian Johnson or something. In terms of what may be digging at them deeper than "Batman didn't turn to the camera and tell me that killing was wrong before doing a hecking praxis", Zack's sense of irony does seem like it doesn't quite land with a lot of people. I think one of his flaws, related to one of his strengths, might be a kind of over-dedication to his vision. His shots are frequently very dense and can go by fast. I think maybe it's a case of him being. a very idiosyncratic, vision driven very visual director working in a big tent populist form. He's a weird dude with a weird styles who makes movies that are simultaneously emblematic of their genre while being really weird and wild compared to the rest of the genre. He gets poo poo on for being an Objectivist, for showing Superman as some superior godlike being with big fascist muscles, and for showing people engaging in religious type behavoir towards him, and complain that Superman isn't just a down to Earth guy, ignoring that part of Superman's conflict is trying to find the best way to use his godlike powers to best serve the people instead of serving himself. A lot of the criticism of his Superman is that he's sometimes conflicted, even worried. They want a Superman who always knows the right thing to do, who is at once perfectly godlike but also down to earth. All Star Superman, which is a really great Superman too and I'd love to see a movie like that, but that's not MoS Superman. Cavill Superman is also thoroughly moral, and godlike and powerful. He's going to do the right thing, but sometimes knowing what the right thing to do is hard. He's not the Perfect Dad Superman some people want. That dad isn't very useful anyways. Sometimes even good dads get sad. They don't always know what to do either. Superman is still for truth justice etc, he's not ambiguous, but he's in a much more ambiguous world in Snyderverse. Snyder doesn't paint him as the transcendent phallus we should worship, but shows a man wants nothing more than to NOT be a god being turned into one.Clark rejects being deified, he's just a dude who wants to help out and have emotionally intimate bathtub sex with his cool girlfriend who he loves and respects. Unfortunately sometimes that turns into an international incident. If anyone is objectivist in BvS it's Luthor and Batman. Luthor is literally a billionaire manchild redditor. He's the archetypal Atlas Shrugged fanboy, but he's just a fanboy. Meanwhile Bruce is an actual John Galt who's hosed off from society to live in a glass box in the woods and pursue enforcing his will for his own reasons on everyone else regardless of laws or any morality, increasingly including his own. His redemption in the end is essentialy Snyder finding a way to redeem Rorchach. Snyder likes Rorshach. We all do. Sure he's a stinky, horrible violent lovely reactionary freak, but he's a really interesting character. He's got drama, there's more to him than his many glaring moral failings, but they're the outcome of a lot of pain, and represent not just pure sociopathy, but a deeply dysfunctional attempt to do something good. He's a tragic character, and it's inevitable the guy who made Watchmen wouldn't have been thinking a lot about that, purely form his own experience making Watchmen. I've seen a lot of variations of describing Rorshach as the bad guy in Watchmen, probably way more than Ozymandias. People think Rorshach is cool, because he is. He's a cool character. You can dig a character, even have an interest in or friendships with people who are flawed. Some people think he's cool for all the wrong reasons, but that speaks more for the quality of the character. Watchmen is a story about hosed up people and their broken-rear end attempts to be heroes. Everyone in Watchmen is hosed to hell. Zack Snyder obviously knows Rorshach is a hosed up dude, but he has some sympathy for his tragedy, and being that he's a guy who seems to enjoy redemption narratives, he was able to work one into BvS. Because BvS is a better Watchmen movie than Watchmen. But, to someone who can only analyze stories on an ideological level where every character is just a Ben Garrison character with s label identifying which political ideology they are a stand-in for, redemption is offensive. Rehabilitating a fascist is, in this hyper-simplified biunivocal model of analysis, redeeming a fascist or objectivist character is directly equivalent to redeeming fascism or objectivism. This reflects the increasing tendency of "The Left" as it exists online, with ideology becoming more and more reduced to posting matches against invisible enemies, with one's expressed ideology being a simplified stand in for reputation, or actions. In a world where there is no action, where's everything is pure words and images on screens in the ether expressing ideas and not deeds, eventually it can only come down to people either existing as various forms of Based Me and Cringe You. There is a bit of an element of what constitutes greatness and heroics in Snyder's movies, and Superman is the only superhero in all his superhero movies who isn't pretty hosed up about something or another. Like he said, MoS is his only unironic movie, which makes Superman the only unironic superhero across all his works. That's his superman's conflict. I like Suckerpunch but that's a really weird movie and maybe a little too complicated, around a pretty spicy issue. It's also kinda like his Pain and Gain, his rosetta stone. EDIT: Or maybe the reason people misunderstand him is that he’s such a slut for aesthetics that even when he’s depicting bad people doing evil things, he can’t help himself from making it look stylish and cool. Robotnik Nudes fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 23:47
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Honestly, I don't want to go down the road of "wow, you're not really a leftist for not liking a Zack Snyder film" because that's just dumb crap. I'd sooner say that the person has a major problem with nostalgia or terrible media criticism skills for their bad or poorly-thought-out essays. But also that makes it hard because people don't like to post examples or choose them selectively which makes it very hard to engage with their criticisms. Or if they do and you engage with them then they feel like they're being bullied by a bunch of cultists who can't accept people who like the film they enjoy. The later is often used as an example on twitter. But I also willing to bet that if you look at all those mob responses it's the same few dozen VERY ONLINE Snyder fans who are too enthusiastic about defending his films online. And, as we all know, at that sample size they represent 100% of the fans of these films.
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Jul 31, 2020 00:04
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hey fellers, im a lurker sometimes poster, and i used to hate zach snyder. not sure why, i guess because thats like... the thing to do this thread really made me re-evaluate my opinions. its interesting to read, and while i dont agree with anything, im thinking of giving him another shot i watched the new maggie may fish video and it absolutely disgusted me. somehow this person who is supposed to be making media analysis videos thought that the preacher on tv in dawn of the dead is supposed to be the one who is correct about the reason of the outbreak. she even mentions people could defend it by saying its satire or he's not supposed to be right, but she says thats.... not true because.... its not? it was such a bad faith criticism, and maybe i made such in the past about snyder too. i think im going to rewatch some of his movies and see how it goes. i think watchmen is genuinely great both because of and in spite of the way snyder adapted it, so im looking forward to going back and re-evaluating it in good/better faith im not a good analysis kinda guy but this thread has been really interesting to read, way better than just some circlejerk about how snyder sucks, though admittedly it can be a circlejerk in the other direction keep doing what youre doing
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Jul 31, 2020 01:19
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Jimbot posted:Honestly, I don't want to go down the road of "wow, you're not really a leftist for not liking a Zack Snyder film" because that's just dumb crap. I'd sooner say that the person has a major problem with nostalgia or terrible media criticism skills for their bad or poorly-thought-out essays. Whether someone likes or dislikes the films is fairly irrelevant (that's the realm of consumer product evaluation), but the issue is that there's nothing apolitical about these 'major problems with nostalgia and/or terrible media criticism skills'. You don't just accidentally get a nostalgia for the First Gulf War or whatever, and you can't apolitically perform an ideological critique.
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Jul 31, 2020 01:25
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BB2K posted:hey fellers, im a lurker sometimes poster, and i used to hate zach snyder. not sure why, i guess because thats like... the thing to do Well if you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to share them with us!
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Jul 31, 2020 02:17
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will do, will try to get around to watching stuff and sharing opinions i wanted to ask/share about watchmen i guess then i saw it before reading the comic, and loved it, and watched the extended cut a while after reading the comic and felt it kind of missed the spirit of the comic in a few little ways, but one kind of big way i dont think movies have to stay true to comics, and to be honest ive only ever read two comics, watchmen and the killing joke, and i think changing the squid stuff is fine and all, and in particular the opening credits montage is a loving masterful addition. but one thing that seemed really important in the comics is that, these guys are all really sad has-beens, and whenever they use violence its not glorified, its them defending themselves, enjoying it and seeing how hosed up that is. of course, that's still in the movie, but it's all super stylized, to make it all look cool as poo poo. i love good action movie action, but the action in the watchmen movie has never got me, and seems to kind of go against the purpose in the story/theme of more the book, but also the movie too. dan and still gets horned up over it and fucks in the owl after, but it seems more like a, 'drat, that violence was cool, im horny now' rather than 'drat, this is the only thing that gets me going`. someone mentioned the rorschach scene where he fights the cops just earlier, and i think its another good example of snyder doing this. i guess it's a 'cool' fight, but him falling/twisting his ankle seems so much more fitting in the portrayal of rorschach as a character overall. he's got a code and doing what he thinks is right, but hes hosed up and just one crazy guy, not any kind of 'super' man. do you guys have any thoughts on this? to be fair, its been a while since ive seen the movie, but these are the reasons i remember clearly for disliking what snyder did. i think outside of this stuff, its an absolutely amazing adaptation of a difficult source material, its all to snyder's credit that it's as good as it is, but i also feel like it could have been like, perfect, if he just got out of his way a little. BB2K fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 03:03
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One constant red theme across his superhero stuff and Sucker Punch is that the action scenes are never, for a lack of better term, innocent. In watchmen it's gory and brutal, those gangsters are brutally crippled for life, if not outright dead. Even when it's stylized and "cool" you still see the bones crack and blood spurt. It's visceral and off putting. In MoS and BvS, superheroics come with collateral damage,you can't knock someone through an office building or toss a sharpened pieces of metal at folks and not kill anyone In Sucker Punch, he deliberately equates action scenes with the women being sexually abused as a commentary on the inherent sexism of nerd culture He almost always depicts violence as shocking, brutal or visceral, it's never sanitized or normalized like so many other blockbuster films where faceless goons get kicked in the face and take a dive. As an aside, just like watchmen the comic was a deconstruction of the superhero comic books genre and their tropes, so the movie was about superhero movies and their quirks. It's why their suits look like out of Batman forever
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Jul 31, 2020 03:50
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BB2K posted:hey fellers, im a lurker sometimes poster, and i used to hate zach snyder. not sure why, i guess because thats like... the thing to do Have fun! If you go through his work keep us updated on your thoughts, good or bad. You should rewatch from the start, mostly because Dawn of the Dead and 300 are probably his most accessible films.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:14
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McCloud posted:One constant red theme across his superhero stuff and Sucker Punch is that the action scenes are never, for a lack of better term, innocent. this is an interesting answer that ill keep in mind, but i feel like there are ways to present violence as off putting without making it cool, which would make the point more clear and maybe prevent misinterpretations. but its a directorial choice, and he definitely has a style, so its up to him. blue ruin is the movie that presents violence in the most stark/visceral/offputting way ive ever seen and is amazing for it, but its also very far away from a superhero movie. i guess one reason i could miss some stuff with snyder is that i dont really like/am uninteresing in superhero movies in general, especially superman. LesterGroans posted:Have fun! If you go through his work keep us updated on your thoughts, good or bad. LesterGroans posted:Have fun! If you go through his work keep us updated on your thoughts, good or bad. will do! might not get to them anytime soon, but im looking forward to when i can ive seen all but the owl one and sucker punch before, and really liked dawn of the dead from the first time i saw it. great zombie movie.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:25
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He's still mostly making Hollywood blockbusters in well-known franchises, for better or worse. Sucker Punch is about as close as I would expect Snyder's work to get to deliberately alienating the audience, and even then the point isn't "haha nerd stuff sucks, you're a bad person for liking this" so much as "I know the things I love have some limitations and some dark corners, let's explore them honestly."
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Jul 31, 2020 05:29
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thats a very good point, i guess its pretty dumb to compare a hundred million dollar movie to something made with kickstarter money.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:39
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Centrist liberals are so used to the MCU specifically, actively jacking them off that anything else becomes a jarring lack of comfort.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:42
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:He's still mostly making Hollywood blockbusters in well-known franchises, for better or worse. Sucker Punch is about as close as I would expect Snyder's work to get to deliberately alienating the audience, and even then the point isn't "haha nerd stuff sucks, you're a bad person for liking this" so much as "I know the things I love have some limitations and some dark corners, let's explore them honestly." It's his style and mind working without the pre-established limitations of prior works, and it is really weird, kind of obtuse and schizophrenic, not in that it's stuck in some weird condradicting duality but that it's kind of all over the place. He's ambitious in the kind of stuff he likes to tackle, and he's completely shameless about it. He doesn't feel the need to have the moments where Batman says some snarky zinger in a big moment to undercut the movie. They are very confident movies and they don't apologize for being sprawling, overstuffed maximalist epics about dudes in silly costumes. Or sprawling overstuffed maximalist anime pervert fever dreams with at least two overlapping levels of reality, probably a third one on top of that subtextually, about Patriarchy and control over women's bodies, the false liberation of escapism, the sinister implications of the Joss Whedonization of women in nerd culture, psychiatry as a form of authoritarian social control, and many more. All of that crammed into an absolutely visually gonzo flood of hot girls in anime costumes fighting symbolic robots. He has no shame. For all of the gonzo schizzoid katamari of elements going on inside Suckerpunch, it sticks to its guns. It knows exactly what it's going for and what it's doing, even if nobody else does.
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Jul 31, 2020 06:52
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BB2K posted:this is an interesting answer that ill keep in mind, but i feel like there are ways to present violence as off putting without making it cool, which would make the point more clear and maybe prevent misinterpretations. I actually believe the interpretation that Snyder’s action scenes ‘aren’t supposed to be cool’ because they’re too brutal or something is actually misguided. Much of the violence is absolutely ‘cool’, but the films are interrogating that coolness. What are you being seduced into? My theory of ‘badassery’ is that it’s appealing because it’s pseudoethical. Like, any idiot who dispenses sufficiently awesome violence is easily mistaken for a Darth Vader figure. But Snyder combats this by making the ‘badass’ characters unmistakably pathological and all-too-human in their actions. They’re all Anakin Skywalkers. That’s related to how actual objectivists mistake an utter shamelessness for ethics. Ayn Rand had a thing for serial killers because she somehow believed that they were free of pathology. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 07:00
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Ironically, the modern take on the serial killer is usually someone who's basically a slave to their obsessions. Random note: is Batman a Darth Vader
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Jul 31, 2020 07:42
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I actually believe the interpretation that Snyder’s action scenes ‘aren’t supposed to be cool’ because they’re too brutal or something is actually misguided. Much of the violence is absolutely ‘cool’, but the films are interrogating that coolness. What are you being seduced into? The objection to the 'coolness' or 'flashiness' of Snyder's action scenes is one of the most common criticisms I've come across, and I think it ties back nicely into Tuxedo Catfish's point about the confusion of aesthetics with ideology. If we accept this framing, then there's a feeling of contradiction; I'm watching a viscerally exciting scene, but the results are horrific rather than cathartic. No matter which way the characters go our minds can't get rid of the "conflict". If they appear to feel catharsis from the violence then we are left feeling like we've been tricked into emotionally empathizing with psychopaths, and if they appear to feel horrified then we end up in this depressing hole where there is "no joy" to be had because no truly good actions are even possible. If I can't even kick a nazis rear end without feeling bad about it then what is even the point of anything?!? The conflation of feelings of joy or elation or excitement or righteousness with holding a good or correct ideological stance is an 8000 lb gorilla sitting in pretty much any room where discussion gets even slightly political. With that being said, I would say that your theory of badassery works, but doesn't go far enough in my opinion. I think the appeal of badassery is closer to a vicarious experience of rage. Specifically, as a reaction that comes from a feeling of powerlessness. It is very empowering to feel as if we can make a difference in the world through sheer force of will or physical might, especially when confronted by overwhelming systemic problems. A 'badass' in this sense is someone who manages to put their righteous/rageful fantasies into action, and we can go along for the ride as they force the world to change around them, or at least try to. So yes, Darth Vader (and some of his imitators) can be badasses while Luke is not really seen as much of a badass until RotJ, when he starts force-choking people. But of course, under this rubric Tyler Durden is also a badass. And so is Rorschach. All of these people are putting ethical ideas into action like it was second nature, and all of them are very anti-system to the point where they would pretty much sacrifice it all for what they believe is right. But acknowledging that Tyler and Rorschach are badasses is very uncomfortable. I would say that's because they put their ideology front-and-center. Most people don't have a problem with Vader being a badass, or really any other sufficiently gifted heavy. Vaders ideology takes a bit more work to get to (and indeed I think a lot of the objection to the prequels can trace back to clarifying Anakins ideology enough that it retroactively "ruins" Vader for them), so it's not as obvious what ride you're along for when you watch him fight or strangle people. You just know he's powerful enough to exert his will on the world and get away with it. At least for a little while. I think it's great that there's media out their forcing the juxtaposition of an unpalatable ideology with "badassery" or "coolness" or whatever you want to call it. This is a coupling we should be working to weaken, not reinforce. I think if we restrict ourselves to telling stories where the bad guys are never genuinely attractive or seductive, we end up training ourselves to get blindsided when a bunch of people "suddenly" start thinking these unpalatable ideologies aren't so bad after all. And that is NOT a callout on you BB2K, or an attempt to psychoanalyze you. I appreciate your thoughts and just wanted to use them and SMGs as a springboard for posting my own. I've ran into that specific reaction so many times (from so many films, not just Snyder's) that it feels like a cultural fixture, and I just have the urge to push back against it.
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Jul 31, 2020 08:58
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As a fan of horror films and the slasher genre, I've never once had an issue with this, so maybe that's just me. No poo poo violence is bad, it can also be fun as hell.
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Jul 31, 2020 09:04
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There’s a line from shoot em up I think about a lot. “Violence is one of the most fun things to watch...” - Pauly G AKA Rhino
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Jul 31, 2020 09:10
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Burkion posted:No poo poo violence is bad, it can also be fun as hell. It's off-topic, but this discussion is exactly the brick wall games journalists bounced off the other month when they complained that The Last of Us 2 was simultaneously grossing them out but also extremely fun.
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Jul 31, 2020 09:13
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Snyder is a film maker who understands that there will always be some degree of wanting to have your cake and eat it too when using cinematic violence to comment on cinematic violence, but as he is damned if he do damned if he don't, he prefers to be damned for eating the cake.
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Jul 31, 2020 09:22
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I think for a lot of people there's different buckets of film that get watched differently, so maybe that plays a part in it too. A LOT of the people making these kinds of objections are fans of Cannon films, 80s/90s action schlock, and horror. They'll also praise movies like Parasite, which display a decent amount of uncomfortable ideological tension. So why not both??
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Jul 31, 2020 09:22
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Necrothatcher posted:It's off-topic, but this discussion is exactly the brick wall games journalists bounced off the other month when they complained that The Last of Us 2 was simultaneously grossing them out but also extremely fun. And similarly, it's something you'd think they'd have at least some ability to comprehend given it's been a recurring theme in the medium for decades and counting.
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Jul 31, 2020 09:31
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I mean, our entire culture is built on violence, it's just that we're used to most of it. If you don't pay the rent, the sheriff will come and evict you by force. You work at a job where your boss retains most of the value produced by your labor, and then people die because they don't have the money for healthcare or other basic necessities. Some of you are probably reading this on a device that uses lithium-based rechargeable batteries, and as an American our government has helped overthrow others to improve our access to that resource. It's not so much that "violence is bad" as it is that violence is synonymous with power. The superhero fantasy is basically "man, wouldn't it be cool to have enough power, personally, to live according to your own moral code and only be accountable to yourself" -- at least to some degree, there's obviously a difference between Spiderman and Superman, here. From there it's an incredibly easy and obvious leap to "that's kind of loving scary, too", because people are fallible and irrational and can be selfish and so on. It's pretty individualist, in the sense that the fantasy is also more or less that you don't need anyone else to transform society -- when it doesn't go one further and just paint superheroes as glorified cops, defending and maintaining society as it currently exists. There's a lot wrapped up in it, a lot of things we take for granted that we probably shouldn't, a lot of invisible things that are scandalous and fascinating when they're made visible and literal. But I don't think the interest in violence itself is pathological. It just comes from knowing where you stand in the world. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 09:38
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:I actually believe the interpretation that Snyder’s action scenes ‘aren’t supposed to be cool’ because they’re too brutal or something is actually misguided. Much of the violence is absolutely ‘cool’, but the films are interrogating that coolness. What are you being seduced into? To clarify, I didn't mean that Snyder's action isn't "meant" to be seen as cool, it absolutely is. Zack knows violence is sexy and cool, and I also think this is exactly why he also makes it uncomfortable to some degree. It's like, violence is so often depicted in blockbuster movies and cartoons as this PG-13 sanitized action where buildings blow up and people get shot and brutally beaten but it's ok because we never see anyone in the buildings get hurt, there's no blood when people get shot, when someone is kicked to the face they just get knocked out with no permanent damage etc etc, to the point that it's normalized, so when someone does point out how hosed it actually is without sanitizing it it becomes jarring, which I think is the point, if that makes sense? He's using cool action sequences as a vehicle for commentary. So uh, that's a long-winded way of saying "yeah, totally agree" I guess?
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Jul 31, 2020 12:53
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Another of the fun double-meanings in the film is that Batman's infamous "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" line is not just a callback to when Bruce pulls Neeson from the temple fire. It's more specifically a reference the earlier scene where Bruce and Liam Neeson discuss Bruce's father: I don't remember who on here pointed it out first, but I now always think about how this contrasts with the BvS Wayne's decision to imediatly engage in cqc
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Jul 31, 2020 14:44
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"What are you gonna do, shoot me?" - Thomas Wayne
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Jul 31, 2020 14:48
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Robotnik Nudes posted:Snyder is a film maker who understands that there will always be some degree of wanting to have your cake and eat it too when using cinematic violence to comment on cinematic violence, but as he is damned if he do damned if he don't, he prefers to be damned for eating the cake. A hero cake, if you will
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Jul 31, 2020 14:52
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drat I really love that story. Jonathan superheroically fought and defeated a flood like an epic hero, doing the right thing the whole way and fighting with everything he had as a mere mortal man. And of course there were consequences. There always are. Jonathan Kent vs Weather disasters is right now a 1 - 1 tie. Very respectable record.
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Jul 31, 2020 14:56
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Pa Kent is goddamn amazing in MoS and BvS - it's probably my biggest pet peeve with people criticizing these movies. I feel like people who poo poo on him are living in opposite land. He was the backbone of the movies.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:02
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Vintersorg posted:Pa Kent is goddamn amazing in MoS and BvS - it's probably my biggest pet peeve with people criticizing these movies. I feel like people who poo poo on him are living in opposite land. He was the backbone of the movies. Well, really, it's because they agree with petulant teen Clark: why can't I just be a superhero and have fun? Pa Kent's seen Ang Lee's Hulk and he knows how this ends up. It's just like how, in BVS, the reviewers very clearly agree with Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor but get frustrated because those two are clearly bad. Wayne's unambiguously a republican, etc. I remember liberal reviewers getting really upset that Pa Kent says he was trying to hide his illegal immigrant son from the government. They took it as a dig at Obama! It'd be fine if it were, but Clark's pod crashed sometime during the Reagan administration.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:40
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McCloud posted:To clarify, I didn't mean that Snyder's action isn't "meant" to be seen as cool, it absolutely is. Zack knows violence is sexy and cool, and I also think this is exactly why he also makes it uncomfortable to some degree.
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Jul 31, 2020 16:53
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Halloween Jack posted:He's like Verhoeven in that he gives you what you want, to the degree that it becomes unnerving. If this were true the army would have been way more prominent in Beavis
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Jul 31, 2020 17:55
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