|
Sir Kodiak posted:Yeah, Man of Steel being a sci-fi movie about an alien finding his way on Earth, drawing as much from, like, Starman as it does previous Superman works, is one of its big strengths. I love Man of Steel for how '50s sci-fi it is. Take away the obligatory comic book stuff (which isn't much, really) and your left with Zack Snyder's Teenagers from Outer Space.
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2019 01:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:39 |
|
|
Fart City posted:Clark Kent snaps Zod’s neck at the end of MoS because he’s not Superman yet. He hasn’t gained the experience and perspective to adopt the character’s classic portrayal of morality. He doesn’t really become “Superman” until BvS, both in name and by virtue of his actions. Clark's morality isn't the issue. It wasn't a lack of experience or perspective that lead him to kill Zod, and as miserable and traumatic as it was, he wasn't wrong to do so. There was nothing unvirtuous about his actions, and there was no point where his being more self-sacrificing would have helped any. His failure to prevent a greater loss of life than he had, his failure to redeem the Kryptonians instead of destroy them, all come down to things outside of his power. Regardless of how strong he is, that wasn't enough to save absolutely everyone. Regardless of how good he is, that wasn't enough to navigate a bloodless solution. It's not that Clark's a regular dude who has to become Superman. It's that for all his incredible power and good will, Superman is still human.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2019 18:33
|
|
|
Fart City posted:I get what you’re saying, but I think if you look at Snyder’s original death/resurrection plotting (even the condensed version we ended up with), the basic long term arc is Clark Kent evolving to become the “classic” pop culture interpretation of Superman. He spends most of MoS in over his head, inadvertently causing more collateral damage (him floating over the tanker truck and letting it slam into a building isn’t a mistake by Snyder, but by Clark) by BvS we see he’s already evolved some from his experiences; someone asked why he didn’t just snap Batman’s neck earlier. Well his whole characterization in that movie is about taking responsibility for his abilities (he freely goes to a congressional hearing at his own will). The whole dynamic between Superman and Batman is that they’re passing each other in opposite directions: Superman is becoming gentler and more “heroic,” while Batman is regressing and becoming more violent. I get that, but at the same time I feel it's a little overstated. Clark's going to a congressional hearing at his own will in Beevs isn't a change to be more responsible than he was in MoS, since in that movie he also freely surrenders himself to the government. If anything, it's a return to responsibility after bungling in Africa, not an improvement over who he was in MoS. Likewise, the fact that he doesn't simply kill Bruce isn't him changing for the better, it's just a continuation of his earlier behavior where he held off killing Zod until it was clear that doing so would kill someone innocent. Clark doesn't have to kill Bruce because he's never put in that position. This isn't to say that Clark doesn't change or become a better (Super) man, but this is more of a change in his perspective of himself in relation to the world than a change in his willingness to do good or sacrifice himself.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 1, 2019 19:33
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:What political part of Fountainhead do you think Snyder disagrees with? What about Fountainhead do you think Snyder agrees with? What about his work demonstrates this? Asking other people to argue the negative is just tricking other people to make your point on your behalf. Do your own homework. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Mar 3, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2019 20:32
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:I suppose it's possible that he's planning some sort of huge refutation of an Ayn Rand novel as an adaptation of it, but that seems inconsistent with his general love of very slavish adaptation elsewhere. Cease to Hope posted:I did miss the fact that he's working on adapting Rand's own screenplay, which indicates to me that he's planning a faithful adaptation, not a radical reimagining. Can you elaborate a little more on this? It's so common to read complaints about how Snyder missed the point of such-and-such a work he's adapted (eg: the ending of Watchmen) that is, that he reimagines a given work too much. I'm a little caught off guard to read someone say the opposite.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2019 21:57
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Do I need a long explanation to justify thinking 300 is really literal, or that BvS went out of its way to visually and thematically check DKR and Red Son even when it didn't make a lot of sense? I can't comment on 300 as an adaption (I haven't read the original) but saying that BvS is simultaneous a faithful adaptation that bridges two separate works seems like a self-defeating argument. Either it's a slavish adaptation of one or the other, or it takes liberties to bring the two together. And if the film does take liberties, then it's wrong to simply take it for granted that Snyder always produces slavish adaptations. And if he doesn't always produce slavish adaptations, then there's no ground to take his interest in producing a film adaptation of The Fountainhead as evidence that he himself shares that ideology.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2019 23:12
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:BvS occasionally does things because the source material did them. It is not faithful to any sense of coherent logic but it is at times a slave to a scene from Red Son or DKR that Snyder must've liked. It's a whirlwind of nonsense. Is it "a whirlwind of nonsense" or does it "deviate from their themes very little?" Something can either be incoherent or not. You can't have something with clearly expressed themes that simultaneously cannot be understood.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 01:06
|
|
|
Slutitution posted:I'm not denying anything; he wants to adapt a book about objectivism to film, which would undoubtedly empower that reprehensible ideology in a time where reactionary bullshit is already ascending globally. You and a few other idiots ITT keep regurgitating the same, tired dodge of, "Uhhh... bbb-but he identifies with Rand because no studio will let him have 100% control over his bad movies!" Like, that is your loving excuse for allowing an idiot to empower Objectivism on a visual medium to an already impressionable - and borderline illiterate - society and world? This is the same style of thinking as poo poo like, "I wasn't a racist until an SJW made fun of me." Objectivism isn't some evil spirit. It doesn't magically become stronger whenever someone foolishly says it's name.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 21:33
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:His father's argument isn't very effective to me. I don't get a good idea of what it is he's afraid of. He's afraid of people reacting as they do in the sequel, wherein the knowledge of who and what Clark is leads to rash action that endangers a great many people and ultimately kills Clark.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2019 22:07
|
|
|
CityMidnightJunky posted:Do you genuinely believe this? I get liking something someone else doesn't, but I really don't get acting so defensive about a bog standard superhero film that you have to write essays about why it's this deep, philosophical masterpiece and get arsey to anyone who disagrees. You're taking "one of the best things in all superhero movies" to be a much higher bar than I think is warranted.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2019 15:46
|
|
|
We all have personal beefs, but we should try and set them aside as best as possible, to at least keep an objective-ish viewpoint.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 8, 2019 02:07
|
|
|
josh04 posted:https://twitter.com/BlackLionAuthor/status/1110184683155812354 The really weird thing about all of this is how it's the viewpoints twist in on themselves until they end up at authoritarian. The objection isn't that Batman is a fascist, it's that the film acknowledges the fascism. The actual, literal complaint is that he disturbs their fantasy!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2019 22:21
|
|
|
Nodosaur posted:It's important that Batman not kill because death is part of his origin story. That he's seen so much of it, lived in a city that was decaying from the inside, with cops that were as bad as the mob, and decided he didn't want to be like that. You're saying this as if there were one true (canon, even) interpretation of Batman, but that ain't the case. Batman has been in a lot of stories, and in some of them he doesn't kill and in some he does. In the original comics he was fine killing. In the Burton and Nolan movies, he kills. Even modern comic Batman with his no kill rule, he still regularly employs lethal force against average goons (although they, fantastically, do not die). The "does not kill" Batman who actually doesn't kill is only a subset of the Batmen there have been stories of over the years. It's not actually the core of his character.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 04:44
|
|
|
Nodosaur posted:And you don't think anyone had a problem with that? I'm not saying that. I'm saying "it's important that Batman not kill because death is part of his origin story" is trivially false. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Mar 26, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 05:47
|
|
|
Nodosaur posted:... No it's not? His parents are killed in every version of his origin that matters. It relating to his desire not to kill became an enduring part of his mythos that's been emphasized for decades, and it's not solely about protecting the idea that Batman is inherently "noble" or to whitewash the other unsavory aspects of his character, as I elaborated upon in my other posts already. Legitimacy? My droog, you are talking about depictions of a fictional character. They're all equally "legitimate," and they don't somehow become more or less legitimate because you do or do not like them.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 06:11
|
|
|
Nodosaur posted:But here's the thing - Snyder didn't say "Frank Miller points out the absurdity of the fact that Batman doesn't kill anyone", he says Batman totally kills some dudes and then, when appropriating it, he makes it literal without the subtext nor the commentary. Making it literal is the commentary, that is him talking about the absurdity of it.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 06:46
|
|
|
Beyond what DC Murderverse and others have said in regards to this image being media within the context movie, it's worth pointing out this is a portrayal of a male body as it's being seen by a woman.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 18:30
|
|
|
Threads like this really make me appreciate CD. To have a discussion about a direct that has (for some reason*) become a hot bed on so much of the internet in good faith and earnesty is refreshing. That being said, I agree with this: Pirate Jet posted:I would highly recommend not posting random takes from yahoos on Twitter, I have no intention of responding to any of those idiots, cannot within the confines of these forums, and it’s loving weak enough when they screencap these posts to snicker about them where the big mean wrong-movie-likers can’t hurt them. Either we don't respond to twitter dipshits and we're just being smug about movies, or we do respond and we bringing in drama and participating in some geocites-ish flamewar, and either way, what's the point? *people projecting ethical value on the content they consume Edit: A bunch of people basically said what I was saying while I was typing this up. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Mar 26, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 22:28
|
|
|
Roman posted:best part of it all is watching some very lefty people defend an imaginary billionare who dresses in an armored gimp suit and punches poor people in the face josh04 posted:A power fantasy, but the fantasy is noblesse oblige. There are a lot of fantasies tied up in Batman, but I think one of the main ones is the fantasy of an ideal cop. This can lead to the twisted logic of: all extant cops are bastards -- but the good cop still exists as a fantasy ideal.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2019 22:34
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:this is the basis for most "superheroes are fascist" arguments to boot Kind of, in the extent that superheroes often operate as an apparatus of the government, but that isn't inherent to the concept of the superhero. Early Superman used his powers to do things like build affordable public housing and fight the (real life) KKK, for example. I'm leery of the mindset that all superheroes are defacto bad. That logic can be easily lead to "all approaches to exercising power are wrong" which is a little self defeating. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Mar 27, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 00:56
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:When confronted with an indiscriminately destructive force in an area full of civilians, he confronts that force head-on rather than mitigating the disaster. ...how else is he supposed to mitigate the disaster? Do you expect him to just let the Kryptonians kill people while he does mitigation stuff? Cease to Hope posted:Okay, but isn't this supporting my argument that Snyder conceives of Superman in terms of fighting? If Superman is just strong, this could be a scene of Superman constantly trying to hurl Faora and Large Guy out of the fight and get people to safety while they keep flying back in to renew the attack, but instead when Superman gets the upper hand, he's using it to pound a Kryptonian in the face. This boils down to, "Superman is not powerful enough to take charge of the situation." And yes, Superman is not in charge in this situation. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 27, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 02:52
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Snyder created this scene where Superman's only option is to fight, and even then, that isn't apparent at all. (When he knocks Faora away, his concern is renewing the attack in the middle of another street, rather than continuing to move her somewhere else or focus on getting the people he just saw safely clear of the fight.) A more interesting director could make this scene about saving people from the disaster that is the Kryptonians fighting the military, rather than Superman Punch Fight Times. "This story could have instead been a different story" isn't a criticism of the film or it's direction.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 02:58
|
|
|
Darko posted:The climate scene is pretty much the last time he causes any damage to anything from that point on, Not true, he's involved in an accident at a work site.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 03:27
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Someone (Fart City I think?) was talking about superheroes as the fantasy of a moral cop. Climate change or colonialism as a thing that can be punched to death is two fantasies: the fantasy that such problems can easily be solved with violence, and the fantasy that someone with the power to fix them would fix them. Superheroes often fulfill the role of cops in stories, but superheroes are not inherently cops. Batman is a superhero cop. In the Snyder movies, Batman doesn't much care for Superman.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 05:37
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:This brings us full circle. I agree with this, and MOS gives us a look at what Snyder thinks, too. The Kryptonians aren't "wrongdoers," they're genocidal imperialists. Fighting nazis doesn't make you a cop. If you really want to psychoanalyze Snyder this badly, consider the sequel film. Bruce Wayne puts on a suit and becomes a cop. After that, he perceives that all his problems can (only!) be solved with righteous force against who he feels is a wrongdoer. It turns out he was wrong to think that. Does that "give us a look at what Snyder thinks," too? Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Mar 27, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 05:46
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:It does make you the fantasy of an idealized enforcement agent, one who adheres to a truly just code of ethics rather than flawed codes of law and the inevitable complicity of actual police. I was calling that a supercop, because it's not only superpowered but supermoral. Superman doesn't enforce anything in the film. He does have a code of ethics. Having a code of ethics doesn't make you a cop.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 06:07
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:He's defending Earth from genocidal invaders. They're bad people out to do something terribly unjust, and he's using force to stop them. Yes. That isn't enforcement. That is not what the word means. Cease to Hope posted:You made this good argument that I like a lot, and it's what made me notice that MOS Clark spends all his time rescuing people until he puts on his suit, after which he starts punching people. I never thought about that before. He literally rescues the entire human population of Earth. You've invented a distinction where rescuing people doesn't count if it involves violent action.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 06:28
|
|
|
BigglesSWE posted:You know, it's possible to not like a killing Batman from the past just as much as a killing Batman in the present. BigglesSWE posted:But having a different take on the characters is not the same thing as making a good movie. You allowed to like or not like whatever Batmen and movies you want, dude. No one is taking that from you.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2019 19:18
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:plus pretend i quoted the half-dozen times i've said i like 300 and think it's a good movie, just one with themes i really don't like to think about. argue with the people in front of you, not the ones you imagine. That's entirely beside the point. It doesn't matter if you do or don't like this or any other movie. It matters that when you make a claim, that you can defends it. For example: Cease to Hope posted:Propaganda requires intent, that's all. I don't think Snyder set out to make a fascist movie, or wants people to come away from 300 thinking "gently caress yeah, fascism rules!" Here you're dodging a question. You've said propaganda requires intent, and you don't think Snyder provided that intent. How would you be able to tell? How might the film be different if there was that intent? What about the film displays that Snyder did not have that intent? Back up your claims.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2019 01:25
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Superheroes as manifestations of the people's true ethics who beat down personifications are the supercop. I think MOS Superman is the Superman of the "notmysuperman" people in all ways except the sense that using that power to kill is wrong. I don't really have a problem with Superman killing a Nazi who's about to shoot people, although I do think it's kind of in bad taste given all the Christ stuff. Having ethics doesn't make you a cop. Using violence action doesn't make you a cop. Antifa are not cops. ...do you actually know what cops are, or did you just witness the thread discuss how a cop was a bad thing for a superhero to be and then decide to retrofit "this superhero is a cop" into "I think this superhero is bad?"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2019 01:43
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Where are you getting "I think this superhero is bad"? You're torturing the dictionary to define Superman's his actions as that of a cop. I can only speculate as to why. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Mar 28, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2019 02:08
|
|
|
porfiria posted:Leonidas should have either just immediately executed him or strapped him to another dude’s back to provide 360 murder coverage. Master Blaster could have won Thermopylae.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2019 22:37
|
|
|
ruddiger posted:Rewatching the movie, there's definitely no reason to think Ephialtes couldn't fight alongside them and the other Greeks. Hell, the Spartans are barely shown fighting in their phalanx before breaking rank and getting all flashy (but that couldn't be satire, it's just cool as gently caress, like the Matrix! With... all its black leathery uniforms.... Oh poo poo... Is the Matrix fascist?! Yo, you want to bring up the Matrix in the context of Snyder films, MoS's portrayal of Krypton is visually consistent with the Matrix's post-war Earth. I've heard it called Geigeresque, but it takes way more from the Matrix than it does Aliens. (Not to say that the Matrix doesn't take from Aliens itself, of course.) Xealot posted:In general, this preoccupation with the idea that “viewers misconstrue the message” feels irrelevant. Tons of people view Taxi Driver as an earnest power fantasy. Neo-Nazis like Man in the High Castle and Paul Ryan likes Rage Against the Machine. None of this makes the works in question “unsuccessful,” so why continue to return to this point? Quite the opposite, a good satire should appeal, at least somewhat, to the target of it's satire. If a fascist couldn't recognize the fascism in Starship Trooper, then that means that the film failed in it's portrayal of fascism. This is related to Truffaut's statement, somewhat. War films (eg: Full Metal Jacket) can appeal to members of the military, not because they fail to adequately criticize the military, but because to make that criticism at all the films have to be truthful in their depiction.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2019 17:34
|
|
)
|
Mel Mudkiper posted:I appreciate it, but as I said, I think I am done. I am deeply sympathetic to your position, because finding the exact many to make your point can be incredibly difficult (and I have absolutely hosed that up myself several time), and you're correct that profitable discussion is probably unlikely at this point. At the same time, I think you're being uncharitable by attributing this to any sort of antagonism. I don't know how to say this without coming across like a dipshit, but I genuinely can't follow your argument. Milkfred, SMG, et al probably aren't arguing against the point you are trying to make, but it is legit hard to tell what point your trying to make. I ain't trying to get the last word by posting this after you've already said you're done, but communication is loving hard, and it can be even harder on the interweb. I don't think we should necessarily attribute to malice what is more easily explained by poo poo just being difficult. Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Mar 29, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Mar 29, 2019 17:46
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:I sometimes wonder what people think the little double inverted commas are for. My dude, people who've been following the thread can remember what you wrote, and people who haven't can just go back and check.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2019 02:55
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:Dragging this back to Man of Steel, Superman spends the back half of the movie fighting the murderous aliens. I describe it as enforcement because he isn't attacking them because of their mere presence as invaders or the malignancy of their rhetoric, but rather for their crimes: "You think you can threaten my mother?" His anger is righteous, and his goal is retribution. Superman attacks Zod and Faora and Big Kryptonian, for the crime of harming his home and his family (both literally in the case of Martha and Jor-El and holo-Jor-El, and symbolically in the case of the human race). This isn't a crime against the sovereignty of the United States or not subjecting themselves to the authority of the government or military - the pummeling is bracketed on either side by Superman asserting his indifference to those, and the military can be read as brutally indifferent to the harm it does - but a greater law, against harming those who would do you no harm and hurting someone's family. I like this reading because it frames the movie as a kind of Homeric epic. The Kryptonians fail to follow xenia and subsequently earn godly ire. Clark as Telemachus punishes those who impose too much on his mother. It's the film without any of that pesky Christianity or anti-fascim.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2019 19:10
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:The big problem with this read is the fact that General Zod and his followers are refugees from that society, and the existence and destruction of the Birth Matrix. The threat is not just that the Kryptonians are fascists (because they are infected by the society that rejected them?), but that they could come here and breed. Superman symbolically sterilizes refugees who are infected with the ideology of the nation they are fleeing. Zod's people are not fleeing away from Krypton. Krypton as such no longer exists. Zod's people are establishing Krypton on Earth. They are not refugees, they are colonizers.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2019 23:49
|
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:They are both. Whether you put more emphasis on them being survivors of a doomed society that rightly exiled them or fascist colonizers changes the meaning of the movie greatly. They very literally are not both. Zod and friends are not refugees.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2019 00:13
|
|
|
Bongo Bill posted:There's a broader point to be made about the straight up falsity in mass understanding of pop media. Kirk Drift is a memorable (fandom-centric) essay on this topic, which I think some in this thread will have read. I'ma little late on this, but this was an excellent read.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2019 00:15
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:39 |
|
|
Cease to Hope posted:You can't even insult people without moving the goalposts. You've successfully proven that SMG was mistaken about you being the only person on Earth to hold that view by demonstrating that -- actually! -- your views are shared by certain fascists. If it seems like the goal is in a different spot, it may be that you're kicking for the wrong team.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2019 04:32
|
|