Comic Book Movies: The day the Batgirl Cried

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Comic Book Movies: The day the Batgirl Cried

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Trying to understand Magmar's point. Wonder Woman's macguffin makes sense because it makes people amoral, something not stated in the movie. So hence everyone being bad I guess.

So what made them give up their wishes? It made them bad, until they were good again? And it not even being mentioned at all in the text of the movie?

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 15:27

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:13

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Wait whip of truth glowing through the world, did we see the same movie? I dont remember that happening.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 16:01

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

thrawn527 posted:

It is weird how they show her not able to reach him with the lasso a couple of times, then reveal that she somehow managed to reach him off camera at some point.

But yeah, it�s clear that the lasso is revealing the truth to the world through the TV thingie.

Ugh I guess I missed that, you would think they would have done a better job of highlighting that was what was happening in a movie that wasn't subtle at all untilthat point

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 18:38

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Lord_Magmar posted:

Whip of truth was glowing all over the world, dispelling the self-lies and showing people the truth of their wishes, literally the opposite power of lies which is what the god who made the macguffin is a god of. As for Wonder Woman herself, she�s basically pushed into undoing her wish by the person it brought back, not her own currently weakened morality.

I never said it was good, I simply said it�s consistent with what the movie shows.

Alright I'm rewinding to this scene. Btw, fast forwarding through this dreck reminds me of how awfully long it is, this loving movie went on forever.

To paraphrase this scene.

Diana tries to throw the whip at Max, who inexplicably goes to the center of the room, away from the cameras. It doesn't work.

Diana gives a speech about how the world is good just as it is.

Max is gyrating in the center of the movie. Hints of enchantress's dancing from Suicide Squad.

Max yells at Diana thinking she was talking to him. Diana is actually talking to a camera, and her whip somehow works this time, twining around Max's leg.

Huge screen in a plaza gets golden, same color as Diana's whip. But I thought it was around Max's leg? Who the gently caress is filming Max right now, and why is the only thing being filmed is a blinding golden light that isn't near as bright in the room.

You see people looking at the screen, looking concerned. Cut to Irish dude, while the lady he cursed is being given CPR behind him. He doesn't look happy.

Cheetah sees a light engulf the communication room, while she holds her head. I guess the whip is getting more powerful, but Diana is still talking in the same monotone voice. Feels like an awkward cut to me.

Max is engulfed in the light, that is coming from the center of the room then. It comes from a row of computers, which sets Max's kid running as a crowd of people rush the room he's in, and anarchy is shown throughout the world. I thought it was dispelling people's illusions?

Russians and Americans launch nukes lol. Max , then sees his kid somehow, and renounces his wish. President renounces his wish, and the missiles vanish and reverse in a Benny Hill-esqe reverse shot.

This is a really confusing scene. If the whip, whose powers and parameters are blown to god like levels without any sort of commentary by characters in the movie, shows people the truth, then why do things get worse after people see it? How is it traveling across the world (I realize I'm trying to figure out why Superman can fix the Great Wall by breathing on it) when there aren't cameras on it. Wasn't it making things worse, until Max rescinded his wish? I dunno, I think this stupid movie is making me think too much about it.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 19:01

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

FilthyImp posted:

Max's megalomania is likely a result of his son Wishing for him to be great creating a feedback loop of Wishes and lovely health.

I think the comfort of home-watching is leading to a bunch of dumb poo poo like "totally missed the shot of the magic lasso snaked across the floor and wrapped around Lord's ankle, causing the slow replacement of the cool blue light with the warm golden glow of truth" or "Why does he want Oil?! / Because his business was based on Oil drilling".

I swear it's one of those situations where the movie could have explicitly said "the stone will drive people to wish for more and more and extract greater tolls, the only way to undo it all is for Max to die / no there must be a way to renounce his wish / yes that would rob the stone of its power and undo everything" and people would be complaining that it spelled everything out.

Look guys, I know it's not perfect but at least Jenkins got to do her Hope vs Lies person-to-person ending, and didn't go "Well we have to show the Wishstone corrupting Max so MAYBE HE JUST TURNS MORE AND MORE INTO A ROCKMONSTER AND THE END IS HIM FIGHTING DIANA WITH ROCK-SKIN POWERS AND GLOWING WISH-JUICE"

There's a whole loving scene where Diana explains the lasso doesn't just compel/reveal the truth, it can show things to people (flashback to explain the somewhat-useless golden eagle armour).

It travels across the world the same way that Max's wishtouch does, by science-particles as shown by the glowing oculus at the center of the room.

Is there a word for movie plot illiteracy? It has to be a thing.

You seem pretty mad about this stupid movie.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 21:25

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

I think the difference lies in what people find to be an acceptable explanation versus just straight horseshit. I find the situation too implausible and therefore am unable to suspend my disbelief.

I read that post about "wish particles" or whatever the gently caress and the part of my mind tasked with parsing poo poo started to whistle the tune from steamboat willie

^^^ e: i didn't post that bit about the cameras, but you know cameras record stuff before they're broken right. Like Wonder Woman was gallivanting around for a bit before the tiara throw and oh god why am i tryin this movie is trash

# ¿ Jan 3, 2021 23:01

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

thrawn527 posted:

Good point. I was looking for a summary article of the long essay, but better to share the original essay.

https://twitter.com/ray8fisher/status/1349500170896084992?s=21

how the gently caress did a mediocre comic book writer (Geoff Johns) become one of the most untouchable people in Hwood lol wtf?

# ¿ Jan 14, 2021 23:56

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

I'd say that I felt there were entirely too many things happening in Ant Man and the Wasp. They should just have had Goggins be the main bad guy. They had at least 3 bad guys!!!

Mr. Apollo posted:

There's a ton of "I'm a lawyer and if Ray actually had something he could speak publicly without fear of being sued. He obviously has nothing and just wants attention." posts on Reddit along with a lot defending Johns saying he's done more for diversity in comics than Ray ever could.

Jesus christ. This dude sucks!

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 00:01

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

I don't see why critics criticizing a well known filmmaker is such a black mark. It's what they do.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2021 02:21

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

ImpAtom posted:

Some of his most defining stories in the past few decades were probably:

Civil War, where he objected to the Superhero Registration Act and lead a rebellion against it. It ended up with him being beaten up by police and firefighters and then being assassinated on the steps of a courthouse after a lovely reporter yelled at him for not having a MySpace.

The Winter Soldier story which is similar-but-different to what you see in the movies and ended with Bucky taking over for Cap after the aforementioned 'shot on the courthouse steps' thing.

Ultimate Cap who was a right-wing shithead who screamed about "This A on my helmet doesn't stand for FRANCE"

The time he got turned into a Nazi via magic world-retconning.

.. he really hasn't a great decade TBH. He is often good as a supporting character but most of his recent solo stuff has been kinda there. (And a good chunk of that time was spent with Bucky or Sam as Captain America instead.)

Don't forget that time Cap turned in his shield because Nixon turned out to be a supervillain

# ¿ Jan 20, 2021 16:24

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Prob the most memorable part of that arc and the comic book was Fabian Niceiza (the writer iirc) literally making text the inability for anything to be permanent in comic books, as Cable sees his work being ripped apart in universe (because the editors wanted him to be a gun toting badass from the future again), and that making the world change for the better in the Marvel universe is doomed to failure.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2021 16:02

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Darko posted:

Seconding that since Netflix has Lucifer, why the hell, heh, is Tom Ellis not Lucifer? I know the show is wildly different from the comic in Lucifers case but its still obvious casting that would be funny.

i only watched most of the first episode and clips here and there but I don't know what his smug-errific portrayal of Lucifer has to do with the comic book portrayal of a dude who's usually just morose and closed off.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 14:57

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

teagone posted:

Wish this was Incursion instead, but DeKnight has so much goodwill with me from Spartacus. I know nothing of Jupiter's Legacy though. Is it a good comic to mine a live-action property from?

The only good thing about it were how hilariously ineffective the fights were. Just a bunch of people (heroes) jumping a villain and the fight looking like a schoolyard rumble.

It was so boring I quit after the first issue.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 23:08

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Xealot posted:

Luke Cage sort of did it, in S1 anyway. Parts of it were in there, the 13th amendment suggestions of Luke getting railroaded into jail and then forced into modern-day Mandingo Fighting, the Tuskegee Study parallels to the not-voluntary experiment that gave him powers. And there's the central imagery of the show being a bullet-riddled hoodie, flipped into a symbol of power.

It was trying to say things, it just fell really hard into respectability politics as it went. And there's the plot where the councilwoman villain hypes up a crowd in Harlem into supporting the police use of military weapons to hunt a black fugitive. That's pretty unforgivable.

There's a weird Obama non-rapy Cosby tone with that poo poo, castigating black young people for listening to hip hop or whatever. Pretty corny.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 15:53

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Mulva posted:

The reason that came about is Laurence Fishburne going "You know I have all this Matrix training, right?" and them going "Oh...huh.". Mads base was dance and gymnastics, so highly choreographed physicality is sort of his starting position. That's the thing, you can do scenes like that....but everyone involved needs a specific type of training. Both those men had years of prep to look good doing that.

To do action you need actors that know how to sell it, choreographers that know how to plan it, film crews that know how to shoot it, editors that know how to cut it, on and on down the list. Any weak link in that process and you can be screwed. What it means is you have to know you are doing action, care that you are doing action, and then budget the time and money needed to get it right. If you simply don't care that much about it, well, you cheat and move on with the story. Marvel has been doing it for over a decade.

You can't pretend it isn't working for them. They are unquestionably weak in fight scenes, but it hasn't seemed to matter.

It didn't hurt that Eric Kripke, The Boys showrunner, had 5 years of shooting varied action scenes every episode on Supernatural.

You need experts at it to do it right. So I'm not that harsh on them loving it up on Wandavision.

What I am especially harsh is on the writing itself, which screwed the pooch by the end.

Setting that aside, previs people get a lot of negativity. But for subpar movies, sometimes they're its only saving grace. The only good thing, for example, in Thor 2 was the end fight which looked like it came from a different movie. A much better one.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 16:30

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Have to be honest the focus on Black Panther's politics always struck me as strange, considering the type of movies I grew up on as a child.

Rambo 2 hoo boy.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 13:33

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Everyone posted:

I remember Rambo 2's physics being whack as well. In the real world, Rambo kills all the POWs he just rescued when he fires off the the rocket at that HIND.

Lol.

Is there an action movie outside of Blade that was a) widely popular, b) didnt have noxious conservative politics, and c) minorities as villains or dickless assistants or best friends high fiving the real white hero...like ever?

Honestly want to know because I'd like to show my future kids that kind of poo poo.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 13:48

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Alexander Hamilton posted:

Elysium has a white hero but good politics, I guess. There�s not many!

I would have liked that movie a whole lot better if the latino best friend was the hero.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 15:11

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Chairman Capone posted:

Big Trouble in Little China?

gently caress yeah thats a good one.

Theres a good making of doc on ytube about the asian cast being so grateful about the movie and how impactful its been for their community.

# ¿ May 8, 2021 15:41

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

[distorted tones start playing]

I'm a Barbie girl

[burnt out armageddon scenery]

in a Barbie world

[dirty stragglers starving in see thru bubbles]

Life in plastic

[gun fire, bodies, blonde hair whipping in the wind]

Isn't it fantastic

# ¿ May 25, 2021 22:02

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Noob Saibot posted:

Also, and this doesn�t really matter, but Geoff is mixed race and has championed diversity in the comics. So I know he�s not some supremacist rear end in a top hat.

Oh come on

# ¿ May 26, 2021 01:28

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

fatherboxx posted:

https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1399813567302492163

Kevin Feige... is a very strange dude for being such an extremely normal person

Reading his notes on Amazing Spider-man 2 that were leaked, they were all great and would have increased the quality of that movie exponentially. He knows how to make mainstream blockbusters that people actually like.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2021 21:08

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Guy A. Person posted:

This is legitimately hilarious and stupid because the entire hook of the Jupiter's Legacy comic is that they rush past all that boring setup and the series basically starts with the heroes old and their kids as adults hosed up by their life in the spotlight, and by the end of issue 3 there has already been a coup leaving the Utopian and his wife dead. It sounds like they intentionally hosed up the only remotely interesting aspect of the comic so they could draw poo poo out and milk it because they thought people would just eat up any super hero poo poo at all.

And yeah ditto'ing the fact that even my friends who are super hero obsessed and see every cape thing in theaters and are caught up on almost any media featuring super heroes haven't said the remotest peep about this show. Good riddance and hopefully this fucks up Millar's stock and he fucks off somewhere where he can't bother people.

Read up on that comic (gave up after reading the 1st comic). The reasons for that spoiler text seem dumb as hell just from reading the summary.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2021 20:55

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Theres this funny thing I read I think from Ghost Rider 2 about Cage literally hitting a wall bc hes running out of insane Cage-isms, yelling about being tapped out.

Or was that Bad Lieutenant?

E: Ghost Rider 2 would have been alot better if they could film any of the action outside of a quarry

# ¿ Jun 7, 2021 12:55

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

in the bts of Ghost Rider 2 you could see flashes of Cage wearing his de los meurtos makeup, which he insisted he wore for every scene where he was Ghost Rider.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2021 01:11

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Neo Rasa posted:

The Dark Knight Descends

# ¿ Jun 16, 2021 15:44

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Male oral sex is portrayed much more than women, otherwise I'd agree with your extraneous pleasure prevention theory

# ¿ Jun 16, 2021 15:53

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

The real sexual revolution was the invention of the pill. But the much ballyoohed "SEXUAL REVOLUTION" seen in the nostaligic boomer movies of yesteryear really paved over misogynistic and male centric views situations where women were targeted as things rather than people.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2021 19:08

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Haha poo poo that wrestling match just nade ne remember I watched that absolute poo poo as a kid. They cut out the strip club bit tho

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 14:00

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

I think having divergent timelines is ok based on how much the Avengers have done it but theres some arbitrary limit that we dont know where being divergent is BAD at least for the TVA

# ¿ Jul 2, 2021 14:23

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Cythereal posted:

Diana arguably rapes some poor dude who never even gets named.

Barbara fighting back against a guy who tried to sexually assault her twice is supposed to be her descent into evil.

Somehow one magic speech made everyone in the world give up their wishes.

"No one knows what caused the Roman Empire to collapse."

"Barbara's desire to be like Diana - a tough, proud, rear end-kicking woman who doesn't take poo poo from people - is selfish and wrong and starts her down the road to evil."

That movie was as bad as it was completely baffling.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2021 16:54

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Xealot posted:

WW84 is the only DC movie I feel the way most people seem to feel about every DC movie. An absolute tonal mess, making odd and confusing choices that capsize any investment I may have had in the story or character. Though I guess Suicide Squad flies pretty close to that, too.

I'm thoroughly in the camp that BvS is far more good than bad, though. It's very coherent on a character and thematic level, and has an actual argument about the characters at its core. At this point, I'm convinced that the main reason people hate it is because they're precious about Batman, who is rightfully depicted as an insane, violent psychopath fueled by trauma.

I didnt like it bc I thought it was exceptionally dull. Aquaman is a rollicking sea adventure. The original Batman isnt that great either imo. Have faint positive memories of its sequel but maybe that'll be undone if I rewatch it.

If Batman was a pure psycho in BvS I think I'd like it more but theres that exceptionally awkward swerve to make him good again at the end

# ¿ Jul 7, 2021 13:44

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

lol.

the only Batflick that has any nuance towards the character is Batman Mask of the Phantasm and Batman '66.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2021 14:01

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Robot Style posted:

Someone could definitely make a good 2 hour Justice League movie, but I don't think Zack Snyder could. His version of the universe is more mythologized and epic (in the tradition of stuff like Ben-Hur or Cleopatra), so kind of necessitates a longer runtime as part of the storytelling method. The HBO Max version of the movie probably helped to offset the time commitment by adding chapter breaks, but people will binge entire seasons of television in one day so it may not be necessary.

If you want a good, short Justice League movie, someone like Adam McKay might be a good choice, since he's got experience dealing with ensemble casts with large personalities. The action might suffer due to his lack of experience with large scale VFX movies, but unless you're doing something really novel conceptually, the action in all these superhero movies just feels like filler.

Its interesting you brought up Ben Hur in that its fairly focused on Ben Hur's journey with the odd scene focusing on his antagonists, the Romans and his ostensible brother.

Even there there's space to cut mostly the Jesus Christ stuff

# ¿ Jul 7, 2021 14:39

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Timeless Appeal posted:

Batman Returns is genuinely a really fun movie and probably peak grotesque Burton. Michelle Pfeiffer's performance is great. It's definitely worth a rewatch and I say that as someone who does generally get bummed when Batman kills.

okay I'll get on it.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 03:43

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

McCloud posted:

This is just nostalgia poisoning

Is this something that can be fixed by replacing my brain pipes

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 05:29

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Everyone posted:

Okay, but so what? Disney signed a contract with her. They gave their word. They then broke their words and breached her contract.

Should they be able to get away with that simply because ScarJo does not perfectly fit your idea of a good person?

Does that mean that other people/companies should be able to break their word/contracts with you if you don't perfectly fit some other person's idea of a "good person?"

This isnt a particularly interesting thing to me but theres no way to know how this is gonna go unless you read the entire conteact. If the contract stipulated that there wouldnt be concurrent streaming at the same time as the movie was in theaters, then thats the only way Scarjo wins here imo.

Everything else is just distraction.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2021 14:52

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Its going to settlement either way.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2021 14:55

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

FilthyImp posted:

I don't know about contracts but concurrent streaming or Day-and-Date physical releases are/were so uncommon that it's weird for me to think it would have been a stipulation.

Id def bet there was. Streaming has been around for awhile and if you know what youre doing you cover all the bases, not to mention if you have a horde of Disney attys

# ¿ Jul 31, 2021 15:22

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:13

Shageletic: Jul 25, 2007

Got another question since Ive never seen it. Did The live action Ghost in the Shell utilize asian elements? In other words, did it sprinkle itself with east asian elements and motifs?

Because if you have a white actor playing an asian actor, while trying to take advantage of what white people think is asia, that is literally orientalism, a long storied Hollywood tradition stretching back to Marlon Brando and Mickey Rooney shoving chopsticks in their mouth and making stupid accents.

I've seen the Ring and it wholly takes place in an American setting that while somewhat unrealistically is staffed entirely by white ppl, is much less connected to a sordid and awful past directly creatdd by Hollywood.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2021 13:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Comic Book Movies: The day the Batgirl Cried

«‹›4 »