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Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Starship Troopers is responsible for post 9-11 society, thanks Paul for adapting that poo poo book to screen in a political climate that was just waiting for jingoistic fascism to take over.

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Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I love MoS probably more than any other modern superhero film, but while I "get" the tornado scene, something feels off about the way its shot to the point I don't feel it has the impact that it should, and I never was able to put my finger on what I would change while still letting it maintain its dreamlike presentation.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Depends on the director, actually. Funny enough: Snyder is known for being highly collaborative with the actors, in fact we have a guy in this thread (Darko) who was on the set of BvS and gave us some ground-level views of his style. Unlike you, who made it up in your head after you watched a Stuckman Youtube video and an AV Club article with a clickbait headline.

Snyder cut my featured role and you only see me briefly in the Extended cut as one of Lex's guards being worked on in the corner by medics after Batman beat me up. And, like my feet or something in the gurney in the trailer/actual movie.



So I'm going to side with him being a dudebro Objectivist now out of spite.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

I like everything about DoD'04 except for the zombie baby, which I feel is in poor taste. Which I'm sure Snyder did as well, he absolutely revels in loving with the audience.

I don't mind the zombie baby at all because it kind of fit and didnt really go super far with it. It was more.about Taye Diggs' reaction.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

ruddiger posted:

Mekhi Phifer's in Dawn '04, not Taye Diggs.

Kanye kinda made a similar mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JAvDgh3rxk


Omar Epps is in In Too Deep, not Mekhi Phifer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Rap1ok1do

They both so occupy that same space that I always forget who is in what.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

People also picture him as some huge jock which may have something to do with it. He's not.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Nodosaur posted:

Still kinda side eying the continued contextualizing of Superman as a Christian symbol when he owes much of his inspiration to Jewish heritage, but that genie was out of the bottle long before Snyder.

Christianity owes its inspiration to Jewish heritage. That's what Christianity does.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Also a big thing is contextualizing Batman's speeches about killing.

He's HUGE against not killing...The Joker, because a) the Joker is legitimately insane, combined with b) he's in a constant ideological battle with the Joker about the ability of redemption that goes along with that. He's often obsessed with "fixing" the Joker.

He also doesn't kill for vengeance and specific reasons like that, and tries not to get innocent people killed. But when it comes to someone like Darkseid, who aren't insane and just pure evil or people that he thinks he can't redeem, he'll either shoot them (Darkseid) or "not save them" (a lot of villains that were later resurrected, because, comics). And yeah, if you're not human but still sapient, or turned yourself into a blob monster or something, hes even more likely to kill you.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Nodosaur posted:

I’m aware of that. But Christianity isn’t Judaism and from conception, the character of Superman resembled Moses more than Christ.

Ehhhh...that's questionable. Jesus' story stole half of Moses' as is (surviving mass baby killings from kings at birth, both did the wilderness journey before accepting their Messiah-ship, both did water control miracles, both had super tempers when young and beat people (to death in Moses' case) for unfathomable sins to them, etc.) so it's near impossible to remove the two.

I get your point entirely, but as America is a more Christian society, the copycat story is more known than what was copied, so it's just going to be an automatic thing, that I don't really blame people for.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Compare the placement of the camera on Wonder Womam between her film and the films she appears in directed by Snyder

He only directed one with her in it, and it doesn't gaze on her much at all; she just looks a bit more godlike. Whedon directed the gazey stuff.

Even Sucker Punch, which is about male gaze, tends to go out of its way to avoid it at times.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Mel Mudkiper posted:

this feels like a deeply dishonest cop out, especially since numerous of the same scenes feature other trademark elements of Synder film-making. Snyder still directed half of that film, and there are visual signifiers of different filmmakers that can be used to determine who filmed a particular scene.

It's not a cop out - I can pretty much tell the difference between the two (also,remember that Whedon was involved in editing, so length of shots and take choices were his decision) and only like 15 minutes of the entire movie were shot + edited like Snyder does, with some of the other 15 minutes that feel anything like him not being paced like anything he's done before.

I'd reference it, but I refuse to watch that movie again because it hurts my eyes.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Okay, BvS, Wonder Woman's introduction as WW in costume.

She's shot entirely in profile, mostly emphasizing her shoulders and arms, *except* in long action shots, where the camera never pans over her body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FcPuyyarzw

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

As Diana, the camera never gazes on her body and makes her face the focus of every shot with her in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6DbVMSCyxY

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I think gaze does come into play off of the top of my head, when The Comedian starts his sexual assault thing, when the old men are lusting over the seers, etc. but that would also be character perspective and not audience perspective. I'd have to rewatch though, because I'm pure memory on those.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

There are always going to be things arguable as being gaze or not. My general rule is if the camera is purposely following a woman in the way someone sexual objectifying her would be looking at her that counts (but iffy if the camera is taking the place of a character's eyes that we aren't meant to be sympathizing with - which is why I made that distinction above). However, if you just happen to have boobs or butt in the frame but there is no real long focus on that, then that's where arguments come in, and it often depends on what the person is already bringing in when looking at it.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

josh04 posted:

Been meaning to for a while, my Man of Steel video essay is now available in regular essay form for people who don't like or won't watch video essays: https://medium.com/@josh04/morality-and-choice-in-man-of-steel-95a07bc85eb4

I was seriously about to do one, but you saved me some effort. I guess I'll do a video essay about the later Alien movies.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Superman can't save people like he does without his ridiculous comic super speed, which he explicitly does not have in the Snyder movies.

It's similar to how Batman can only save everyone that he feels like in comics because he can dodge bullets, jump 30 feat into the air, bench press 3 tons, and do ridiculously silly martial arts, including alien ones.

Nolan and Snyder removed their most ridiculous aspects to ground them enough to cause a constant sense of pressure around them and to make them more human and vulnerable. Even Superman's great emotional choice in Superman 1 is mostly based on him spending too much time sitting around talking to people instead of stopping missiles.

If Snyder Superman tries to use his speed to save someone in half of the situations in the movie, he'll just end up smashing them through a wall or something. You might not personally like a (Year One) Superman being in that position, but I liked the removal of his most hard to write around ability.

Superman is envisioned as a guy that wants to do good...but everything he has as a power is basically built to be a weapon. He bursts forward like a rocket. He tries to use his super strength and breaks stuff in half because he doesn't have "tactile telekinesis." His heat vision explodes out his eyes like crazy,and even when he's healing people, it's extremely painful to them. When he flies, he's taking off like a rocket and causing sonic booms. And that's why the Kryptonian military absolutely relished their abilities. Even though I never liked how the shot was framed, that's also why I liked at the very end, he was finally flying kind of gently when Zod was relishing ripping off his armor and tearing up everything; it was a nice try at representing him learning to work around his weaponization (compare to him first just smashing Zod through the town in anger).

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

josh04 posted:

Killing Zod is genocide.

Genocide is killing a lot of people; that was the humans and Kryptonians doing that, with the military being responsible for genociding the Kryptonians.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Cease to Hope posted:

The clip ruddiger linked has both Superman and Faora-Ul flying across the screen faster than the eye can see.

In particular, consider this moment. Superman has just been thrown through two buildings full of civilians, but he's heroically on the attack, until Large Kryptonian intervenes and slams him into the pavement. I think it's revealing of what Snyder considers Superman to be: someone who fights bad people as best he can, rather than someone who saves people from a disaster. I don't think this is necessarily an inappropriate characterization of Superman compared to the context of every other Superman story (although it does sort of play into the superhero-as-supercop conception), but it is inconsistent with who Clark was before he put on the suit.

Is that inconsistency intent? Is it reflective of how Snyder sees superheroes versus the concept of superpowers? Is it just carelessness?

Faora is the only Kryptonian in the movie able to react and do precise things at those speeds, and it's deliberate because she's the best "fighter" of the group and can fully embrace her speed as a weapon. Clark and Zod specifically can just ram poo poo; if you look at the iHop sequence when Clark tries to use his speed and ram her, she precisely grabs him out of the air at that speed, which also works with how she fights the soldiers in actually grabbing and throwing them while moving and speeds. Zod is shown mainly to be just pure rage manifested at the end; his heat vision explodes like crazy and he creates rubble and destruction everywhere he goes.

Unless the mysterious Snyder cut proves me wrong; this was probably going to be used as a distinction between Justice League members, with Wonder Woman, as the born and trained precise warrior, being similar to Faora and Flash being somewhat chaotic, but who knows.

Darko fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Mar 27, 2019

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

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.

I think that's part of his character development in the film. Early on, everything he does is like a weapon, as his powers make him a natural weapon (which he spends his whole life trying to contain). Even his first flight has him knocking the top of a mountain off. By the end, he's finally doing things "slowly" and getting precise control where he can finally be a savior to a degree - except now this raging missile is flying around blowing everything up and every effort he tries to use to deflect him doesn't work.

He only engages to directly save people; Faora and Nam-ek attack him. His Year One puts him in some of his most unwinnable situations (it *is* his Superman Begins, too). There was obvious growth planned after that.

Darko fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Mar 27, 2019

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

The climate scene is pretty much the last time he causes any damage to anything from that point on, which is kind of funny. He uses everything to destroy the terraforming scene, and then only razes the side of a building that is possibly occupied (no people shown, though), causes a shockwave running into Zod after Zod is destroying a building clawing his way up, and then tossing Zod into Bruce's satellite. Maybe the place they fall into from space, but that one is iffy.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Schwarzwald posted:

Not true, he's involved in an accident at a work site.

1) It was clearly an accident
2) Zod caused that like 99 percent of everything else.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I think the big divide is that I, personally, find a Superman that can "save everyone" an inane story so I don't see the criticism about writing one that can't and is shown to have to make human split moment decisions that sometimes end up badly. Even everyone's favorite All Star Superman does not portray Superman as that.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Vintersorg posted:

It's because most people just fall back on TAS where the only death he brings is against robots. Just like in TMNT and other things. All these click-bait critics grew up with that so it's all they know - its gospel. They don't care for the comics. And being pigheaded snobs, if you dare deviate from it you'll get blown apart.

Batman had to stop him from murdering Darkseid in the cartoon, so they didn't even watch that.

These are the exact same people in multiple instances that said "Batman would never retire" in response to Dark Knight Rises.

Oh wait, are we talking Batman? Let me think about that one for a bit; they "cheated" way more with him.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

^^^I'm sure it was one of the AICN people that started that "not MYBatman" rant. Only a few people talkbacked "uh, he's retired multiple times in the cartoon and comics; I think he may have even been retired THEN."


Their childhood Superman, referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhl9EotHOvo

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Fans were really upset that Superman Returns mainly rescued people from accidents and didn't get into any fistfights.

I think that was a side effect of Singer's more muted tones and direction approach not really appealing to them, and them not knowing how to articulate it. I have that issue with practically all of his films - outside of a few moments I like. So they just felt "boring" and figured it was because he wasn't punching anyone or because he was using his powers to spy on his ex.

Some of that goes with Snyder's stuff too - anything he does with Fong has a TON of contrast and uses a lot of darks, and Zimmer's scores are very percussive and aggressive which can make people feel the movies are "darker" than they are. But they don't really know how to articulate that because they're only really looking at plot.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

ElNarez posted:

isn't the whole thing of Prometheus that these guys are so comically obsessed with finding answers about the origins of humanity that they keep putting themselves in danger until the Alien from Alien shows up?

It's about fear of mortality and religious thought aligning with irrationality with some people, people who are (un)lucky enough to be humanity's representatives in meeting god, in a movie made after a guy made a movie largely critical of Yahweh in general.

The MoS movies AND Watchmen are about another reaction to gods,created by a really Christian guy.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

BigglesSWE posted:

Yeah, okay, if that's the argument then sure.

But having a different take on the characters is not the same thing as making a good movie.

I'm honestly quite fascinated in Zack Snyder. To me, he hasn't made one good movie, yet clearly his stuff works for a lot of people. It's one of those "what am I missing here?"

Half of his films are worth it for the scores within alone. Start there. Then look at some of the standout scenes with only score.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Guy A. Person posted:

I think a big problem is there's this huge disconnect between actual film theory and modern criticism which tends to focus on plot based issues. Trying to articulate why you found a movie bad/disappointing can actually be a tricky prospect, and people tend to fall back on easy criticisms. Which is why you get complaints like "this character did something dumb" even if it was in character for that to happen, or the "dumb" thing was relatively innocuous part of the movie.


Absolutely. I wasn't even planning to see the movie because I wasn't that in to Superman, but it has grown on me so much. I really only like MoS and BvS, I should give his other stuff a rewatch to see if it clicks with me.

I like most of Dawn and love MoS. I appreciate Watchmen and BvS and think that Sucker Punch was a nice attempt that didn't really hit the notes it wanted to correctly.

And I agree entirely on modern "critcism." Ebert's most known reviews having fun with how stupid the plot of things are (mainly his Jaws 4 review) ruined everything.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Also, most who talk about Watchmen read it (if they did) looooong after it was out and didn't see it *in* the time it was created with the surrounding comics, which is why you hear things like "the action isn't stylized" (they're comparing to late 90s comics, if even that).

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

With Snyder, at LEAST he didn't do a super similar *this movie is saying something else* movie BEFORE 300 (he did after, with Sucker Punch, if you want to go the most obvious route) like Veerhoven did.

But drat, i remember being 16 or whatever for Starship Troopers and people and reviewers were like "this movie is cheesy, why is the acting so bad, he didn't understand the book, not MY Starship Troopers since there are no mechs" and then the cartoon comes out and they're like THIS is MY Starship Troopers (cause mechs and other aliens like the book) - and I'm just wondering if anyone saw Robocop before seeing it?

The whole Snyder movement is just basically dejavu, only with current Internet that is even louder with hyperbole.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Alexander Hamilton posted:

2006 was released at the height of the Iraq War and I feel like people should remember that and also maybe realize that America isn’t Sparta in the film.

Speaking of which, it wasn't until the Iraq War that people started realizing Starship Troopers was satire because everyone was acting exactly like Earth was in that movie around and after 9-11.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I think that was assuming historical knowledge, since the Spartans were more gay than Anthenians.

In SST, I knew it was satire when the first "Would You Like to Know More?" commercial came on, since it was so obviously another, "Id Buy That For a Dollar!"

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I would agree that Snyders style is nothing like Verhoeven, definitely, and would never knock a preference.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

I do think we have to consider that the studio wouldn't allow visible penises and he had to work around that. He didn't have to do the same with Watchmen after he already had success, but if the films were reversed, 300 probably would have had said penises.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Considering that 300 (the film) came out deep in the height of post 9/11 conservative tough guy bravado, I think you need to keep in mind some of the social context of the time. There were large swaths of the nation that were 100% sincere in the belief that American had lost its toughness and its willingness to actually fight especially against our enemies.

Do you feel there is anything that can convince these people otherwise? i.e. do the moms cheering their kids stomping on bugs have any metric that will change their minds about bugs being the enemy?

(I'm a cynic in this way and feel no. I think that good satire just gets people who have not yet considered a stance on some things more easily able to recognize behavior)

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

The best part of ST is when the news service says, very quietly "there have been some reports the bugs are attacking because we started taking their planets" or something similar and then immediately goes jingoistic again, because it was such a predictive precursor to how our state run media works in America now.

Those are the hints of what the movie is actually doing but it's very subtle to see on a first watch.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Detective No. 27 posted:

Starship Troopers shows how the young in a fascist society get indoctinated themselves. That's why it ends with SS Doogie.

300 already begins with Leonidas and his spartan warriors at the height of fascism.

Slight correction, it ends with the main 3 in the positions to indoctrinate others. Not just Doogie (sure you know that, but it's an important point to reiterate).

300 does show young Leo in his state of indoctrination.

I actually didn't like the added rape subplot for the longest, but then I realize that if the story was told as propaganda, it makes sense to cast McNulty as an evil rapist to undermine him.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Cease to Hope posted:

The movie presents Leonidas as correct to reject him because his physical ugliness signifies a moral failing. He cannot stand with the Spartans, which turns out to mean he's willing to sell out the Spartans. This is contrasted with the (notably not-ugly) Phoenicians, who simply fail the Spartans because they aren't true warriors, rather than betraying them for their own benefit.

Huh, nah, I'd say the reverse. Leo's failure to accept him is shown to be his downfall. It's literally the rejection and acceptance by others that causes the betrayal.

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Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Batman's personal rule in recent times is "no guns" because his parents were killed with them. He tells his subordinates not to kill because he doesn't trust them doing it.

Although he will use guns in extreme circumstances. Like shooting Darkseid or in the Nolan movies, finally growing the hell up when he realizes he actually *has* to shoot someone to save the city.

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