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+--- Thread: "No one stays good forever" (/showthread.php?tid=6952)
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 29th March 2016
Batman v Superman is not a super hero movie. It's a disaster movie where the disasters have feelings, and that's the best one can say. You can't look up to these characters, you can only try to get out of their way.
It's not even trying to be uplifting. It's trying to be as grim and bleak as it possibly can. Watchmen did too, but that actually had a point, and human characters. This movie, with every single line, seems to scream at you that "morality is a lie and everyone is just as dark and twisted inside as me, Zack Snyder!". This culminates in a line from Superman, "No one stays good forever". What kind of ethos leads someone to write that? That's quite possibly the worst thing I've ever heard! What does that even MEAN? I've known PLENTY of people who "stayed good forever". I mean, it's not hard, you just don't frickin' hurt people until you die! I mean, I can imagine a line like that in some detective noir movie set in the slums of New York, but can you really imagine, say, a farmer wiping the sweat off his brow, looking out at a field after a hard day's work, waving his son over and telling him in a somber voice: "No one stays good forever."
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 29th March 2016
I haven't watched a superhero movie in years now. I never loved superheroes like some people, but I did watch a few of the major superhero movies from the late '90s to mid '00s -- the first two Spiderman movies, X-Men (maybe only the first one?), The Fantastic Four, the first Batman Begins (and the first Batman from '89; not sure about any in between though, maybe not)... but nothing really since. Family go to fewer movies than we used to, and movies like those don't interest me enough to make me want to watch them on my own. I know Marvel and DC have been very successful at making superhero movies in the post-Batman Begins world, I just haven't cared enough to want to watch them.
Of course, I never did read many superhero comics as a kid either. I much preferred Disney comics to superhero ones.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 30th March 2016
Got it, but what do you think of this particular line?
Also, did you read Scrooge McDuck comics back in the day?
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 30th March 2016
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Got it, but what do you think of this particular line?Hmm... well, out of context of how it's used in the movie (is Superman the bad guy, or are both Superman and Batman bad? I don't know)... well, it depends, I guess, on if you consider 'good' to be about actions, or also thoughts. All people have bad thoughts sometimes, it seems to be a part of being human. So in that respect, sure, nobody can stay good forever. However, you are absolutely right that as far as actions go and not only thoughts, people can, and often do, stay good. Indeed, most people are not murderers, and would not want to be one. I have always believed that it is actions that matter the most, not just thoughts, so I agree with you, people can stay good. It is not exactly difficult to not physically harm people for a lifetime, to use the example you mentioned. There are some shades of grey in less direct actions, but still, I would not agree with the degree of moral greyness suggested in your post, no. A lot of modern movies and TV shows like to get far darker than they need to be, it is a somewhat unfortunate trend in storytelling these days...
And on that note, while I have the A Song of Ice and Fire books and will read the rest whenever he manages to finish writing them, I prefer a story with a more hopeful tone and clearer good and evil, over that kind of moral grey morass.
Quote:Also, did you read Scrooge McDuck comics back in the day?Yeah, Uncle Scrooge might have been my favorite one of the Disney comics. Great stuff...
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 30th March 2016
The movie seems to be trying to say Batman and Superman are BOTH good guys, and Superman STILL says that insipid line.
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 30th March 2016
Huh, how odd. That does not make much sense.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 31st March 2016
Zack Snyder is the problem. They've been trying to make DC "darker and edgier" for such a long time that we've reached a point where these "metahumans" aren't even heroes any more. If you want context for the line, Lois is trying to talk to Superman about hope, reminding him that the S on his chest supposedly stands for hope to the kryptonians, and Superman basically says "all the kryptonians are dead". THAT is his response to her call for hope. And no, he doesn't ever come around to say he was wrong later on, he just decides to stop fighting Batman because their moms have the same first name. That line in particular is meant in a "everyone eventually loses faith in goodness and just gets ruined by the dark truth of the world" sort of way, not a "you can't be 100% good 100% of the time" sort of way.
At least unlike most vs movies, they don't both roll into some water and leave the winner ambiguous. Batman kinda curb stomped Superman.
This isn't a movie that makes me hate it because the writing is just THAT bad (it's an "okay" movie on a technical level), it makes me hate it because it's an absolutely terrible movie for kids to watch, the main consumers of super hero movies. Kids are being taught by this movie that hope is a lie and everyone eventually succumbs to the darkness within and turns evil, and none of that matters so long as a wild beast creature is on the loose the not-heroes can fight.
I feel like the Avengers need to show up and slap some sense into these heroes. How is it that Marvel's heroes are the happy-go-lucky ones now? Oh, I would say you stopped watching super hero movies before they even got around to getting really good. Seriously, you just listed a bunch of movies we tricked ourselves into THINKING were good super hero movies because we had no idea how good they were going to get. The second spider man movie is pretty nice, mind, but the "Marvel formula" 1-upped it pretty heavily. Fantastic Four, in all incarnations, is terrible. X-Men movies got progressively worse over time, until they rebooted the franchise (in-universe, via time travel). Batman Begins is pretty good, as was the original Tim Burton movie. Can't complain there. What I'm saying is you should check out things since Iron Man, where the current crop of Marvel movies really started closing in on a working formula. Don't bother watching all of them, but they've really nailed it. Guardians of the Galaxy is probably my favorite of the whole bunch. This isn't to say there aren't some faults. Generally, Marvel movie villains are boring. You'll be watching these movies for the heroes, but the heroes are at least heroic. (Sadly, Guardians is no exception. The villain is even called out by another villain as "boring" at one point in the movie, which was fun to watch.) These are not "deep" movies, rarely having a message beyond "try to be good", but having watched the most recent DC movie, I gotta say I've woefully underestimated just how important that message actually is, because I've seen a superhero movie WITHOUT that message, and it's horrifying. The biggest issue of Marvel is that while they've got a winning formula, it is still a formula, and their movies are, as you say, becoming VERY repetitive. Audiences are going to get sick of Marvel movies sooner or later if they don't get more inventive, and for my part, I kinda already have. I see them because my friends see them, but I was already kinda bored watching Antman and Avengers 2. They're not bad movies, they're well executed, but much like with The Good Dinosaur, I've seen it all before a million times so they didn't grab me.
On DC's side, the best movies they've made were Dark Knight (VERY good) and Watchmen (the one movie questioning the notion of super heroics that actually WORKED, mainly because they stuck pretty close to the script of the comic it came from). The unfortunate truth is their sales department took a look at that and said "yes, these two dark movies, forever", and the latest one manages to, somehow, be FAR more depressing than Watchmen ever was. I've heard their cartoon movies are a lot better, so maybe I'll just check those out, but seriously those things are pretty low-key straight to video affairs so the vast majority of movie goers aren't even going to know about 'em. Batman v Superman is THE version of Batman and Superman for today's kids, the one most of them will think of when they think of those characters, and both of them are idiotic sociopaths.
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 5th April 2016
Quote: Zack Snyder is the problem. They've been trying to make DC "darker and edgier" for such a long time that we've reached a point where these "metahumans" aren't even heroes any more. If you want context for the line, Lois is trying to talk to Superman about hope, reminding him that the S on his chest supposedly stands for hope to the kryptonians, and Superman basically says "all the kryptonians are dead". THAT is his response to her call for hope. And no, he doesn't ever come around to say he was wrong later on, he just decides to stop fighting Batman because their moms have the same first name.Huh. Yeah, that's just way too depressing, I don't like that tone. And that reason you give for them stopping to fight sounds REALLY dumb... their mothers have the same names, so he stopped fighting? Seriously? Come on.
Quote:That line in particular is meant in a "everyone eventually loses faith in goodness and just gets ruined by the dark truth of the world" sort of way, not a "you can't be 100% good 100% of the time" sort of way.The world has both good and evil in it, though, not just darkness...
In general, DC has had a lot of success from the first two Batman Begins and Dark Knight movies and this has inspired them to get even darker... but I guess audiences think they've gone too far this time, the reactions to Batman vs Superman are negative. What direction will DC go in next?
From what I've heard though, aren't Marvel's movies less dark and more just popcorn stuff? It is a bit weird to think of Marvel as the 'happy-go-lucky' side, as stuff like those first two Spiderman movies seemed somewhat serious from what I remember, but Batman always has had a quite dark tone to it, so I can see where DC got that tone from... Batman's popularity, I presume. Oh, as for those Spiderman movies, I don't remember much about them, I didn't like them all that much. They weren't bad I guess, but definitely weren't good either. I guess the first one was okay, but I remember being thoroughly underwhelmed by the second.
Oh, while I've never cared much for superhero movies, there are a few superhero TV shows I liked. Most notably, the early '90s Batman cartoon was very good, I watched that in reruns in college in the '00s and liked it a lot. The Teen Titans cartoon from the early to mid '00s was also good stuff, I liked that quite a bit. Maybe it helped that that Teen Titans cartoon had some anime influences, which I liked by that point? That's about it though, other than enjoying some episodes of that '90s or '00s Justice League cartoon.
And of course, if the Ninja Turtles count I loved that as a kid for sure of course... but the cartoon, not the comics, so probably not really. On the subject of comic books though, I never bought superhero comics as a kid (seriously, not once as far as I can remember, excepting maybe an issue or two of Ninja Turtles if that counts), but my dad did buy this Captain Marvel compilation once in the '90s (The Life of Captain Marvel, I believe?), and I read it and thought it was alright. Didn't make me want to read lots of superhero comics beyond that, though.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 19th April 2016
Here's a Batman quote for Zack Snyder, as said to a man who is also a hawk in an older comic:
"Lighten up a little, will you? My god -- you're positively grim!"
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 21st April 2016
I haven't seen the movie but it seems pretty obvious that it's referencing the United States abuse of power since superman is pretty much the epitome of America (we're all not from here, our vision and strength is our superpowers blah blah) while Batman fits more in to the role of the more secret operations of the government, classified missions and (specially now) counter terrorism. They even have a ground zero sanctuary where millions died and instead of the American flag it's a statue of superman. So the statement has roots in capitalism and military that the greater powers eventually cannibalize themselves to reach ridiculous goals of wealth or control. That's what I would do with the DC characters anyway since Nolan used batman to explain the Patriot Act with the cellphones to hunt down joker (a terrorist) and retake Gotham from what is probably right wing agenda (with a nuke no less). But like I said I haven't seen BvS so... I could be totally wrong on it. Also no paragraphs, this keyboard has no return key so we're just all kinds of meta tonight ladies and gentlemen. Or actually like 4 gentlemen, unless you count DJ has MPD then it's still like 7. Also hi ABF did you force any old technology on yourself and then tell everyone about it in terrifying detail lately because I bet you fucking did
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 21st April 2016
*spit take*
About time you showed up lazy! You're the only hope for our world!
I do get where you're coming from, I'm just not sure I think Superman and Batman make good analogs for that, since both of them are very clearly acting as rogue vigilantes, and both hypocritically call each other out on that numerous times throughout the movie.
ABF still collects old games. That's fine, so do I, but ABF is out of control, picking up vast hordes of complete garbage games "because it's there".
In other news, HBO is currently using Sesame Street to make political commentary on a show with a British guy. The world is weird now.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 21st April 2016
It was always weird. I think they fit because they're icons, every great episode of the animated Batman shows used Batman to explain everything from political tyranny to "rosebud" inspired fear of death and all the way to mythology where a guy goes insane and thinks he's Zeus and Batman fills the role of Hades. There's the reversals with Dick as Robin where Batman is trying to save himself as a child by making him in to himself at a younger age just to have more time to take out his anger out on the world just to have the whole red hood scenario unfold who is a Batman that can kill. It's like Bruce is fighting his own inner mind made physical and we run in to that personally and even as a nation (fighting Germany, a bountiful totalitarian centerpiece of white, white people whose primary goals include superiority). But ultimately the movie isn't doing well so someone fucked up, somehow the attempts didn't click with audiences and no matter how fancy the writing is you can't ignore that. Kubrick (my dad, don't take that away from me) could go ultra fancy and so deep it's insane but still managed to entertain and keep an audience wanting more (internationally no less) so the fact that BvS can't entertain first and then go deep second is inexcusable like. Specially when you're dealing with such easy to love characters and worlds, like how much do you have to fuck up to make people hate/dislike a movie with Batman and Superman? The reviews are like episodes I II and III all over again. I think Lex is Binks
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 22nd April 2016
This is a sound assessment and I wish to subscribe to your twitter feed. ...Am I popular with the young people now? I referenced the twits, so I must be. I am.
Lex was also not even Lex, he called himself Alexander Luthor, and while that is a comic book character, it doesn't matter. He was still Lex.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 23rd April 2016
I'll post my twitter if you show your boobs.
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 24th April 2016
So you haven't grown up yet, huh, lazy.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:ABF still collects old games. That's fine, so do I, but ABF is out of control, picking up vast hordes of complete garbage games "because it's there".
... I guess that's sometimes true, but you never know, some of those "bad" games aren't so bad.... people on the internet love to exaggerate how bad some games are, after all.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 29th April 2016
No I haven't and I'm proud of that but I like how wanting to see DJ's hypothetically perfect breasts makes me a child. I see you're still sentient furniture, how's your floppy disc collection? Were they Y2k compliant or nah?
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 4th May 2016
More teenager than child, really, not that that's better. Though what you say here does prove DJ right for never saying anything about gender...
On that last point I know you're joking, but floppy disks are a massive pain because the stupid things fail far too quickly, and the drives break easily as well. It's just not a storage medium designed for long-term use, sadly... CDs have their issues, but they last far better than floppies.
Oh, and contrary to old TC popular opinion, I am in fact a person. :p
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 5th May 2016
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 5th May 2016
Ahh times never change. :D
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 5th May 2016
DJ I gave you shit for being:
A.) a guy pretending to be a woman
B.) a woman who lives on a mountain
C.) an intense program
D.) a guy that just finds anonymity hilarious
E.) a girl that just finds anonymity hilarious
I will send you $5000.00 USD if you show your boobs with proof that its actually you. I pretended to be like 12 people in this place the least you can do take your shirt off
"No one stays good forever" - A Black Falcon - 5th May 2016
lazyfatbum Wrote:[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]
... That's actually clever. Well done.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 6th May 2016
Clever girl, start with an accusation then ask for "proof" that just so happens to be something you want anyway. Why didn't you ask for my long-form birth certificate if all you wanted, oh so innocently, was "proof" eh?
If you want a boob, try Zack Snyder :D.
I want a chair made entirely out of black falcon feathers, and also it's stuffed with a bunch of dead falcons.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 6th May 2016
Birth certificates can be faked and you can't own a person DJ, even if they're shaped like furniture or bizarrely compliment you. That's called slavery dude, when George Washington went to Delaware and claimed that "death and liberty are the only real taxes" he made all Caucasians worry constantly about what they're saying.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 6th May 2016
I said DEAD falcons lazy! Geez you make me out to be some sort of monster...
"No one stays good forever" - Weltall - 9th May 2016
Why haven’t we had an official response to the rumor that lazyfatbum raped and murdered ninconvert in 2002?
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 17th May 2016
Ninconvert is MIA along with Smoke, both were highly trained operatives and so very, very soft. Soft like the nape of an old peacock, and the sounds of p.... I mean no comment.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 17th May 2016
I almost forgot I finally saw BvS and not only is it exceptional but it even made some unorthodox moves that made it feel much more unique when compared to other super movies. It felt like a grown up episode of Justice League. The only points i'd argue as bad are the gratuitous origin stories and then NOTHING explained for uh, yunno... her. She felt tacked on for sure, but this Batman is by far my favorite. His sense of planning and focused determination really came together as a broken man who pushes himself like a machine to accomplish his goals which visually becomes almost literal. This Superman feels strange still, I don't want to spoil anything so i'll call it the wheelchair scene. For those that saw it you probably felt like i did "why didn't he stop it?" This Superman feels unrefined, like he's more in the superboy stages of his career who makes a lot of mistakes. It's strange to me that we have a man clearly in his 40's who is acting like being Superman is new to him but this completely fits the narrative of a naive super power that i was talking about earlier in the thread. Shoot first and ask questions never is on par for the past 20 years of the United States and Batman blaming everything squarely on him came out a little forced but logical when you consider his emotional state and constant self-propelled guilt trip.
I'm watching it again soon but I do not understand why this movie got so much shit, it's extremely well done save for a few shoe-horned aspects and unique
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 17th May 2016
The biggest issue with it is that the movie wants us to actually ROOT for those characters. It's fine if you want to deconstruct super heroes and expose their hypocrisy (notably by way of having both heroes accuse the other of the things they are blatantly doing themselves), but don't turn around and then try to convince us "but no wait really these guys are RIGHT in what they're doing, they're totally right and I personally tend to Ayn Rand's dollar shaped grave every other weekend". Don't show them taking almost as many lives as they save and then try to claim that EVERY action that saves lives must necessarily take others, negating the entire concept of "helping people". (No seriously, check out a recent interview where he tries to play off the lost lives as exactly the same as arborists yelling at someone saving a cat from a tree because they damaged some branches, which is a scenario this person appears to think actually happens in the real world.)
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 18th May 2016
But it gives it a unique feeling, when batman can't save someone we know he did his best. But Superman has to save everyone. Every person, that's what we expect. Seeing him fail at that is like seeing your favorite team lose, you're disappointed but hopeful for the next game. As for the "rooting" you can't stress enough the human characteristics at play which is Superman's identity crises and Batman's shoulders. Bruce doesn't trust Superman at all and that makes sense in this universe, he's a very destructive god, even *vengeful* at times which Bruce understands (the branding) but he feels like only he can be te judge and jury, only he can be right. His character grew when he realized he was wrong and fully accepted Superman. He apologized to him and chose to trust him. That was a big moment, choosing to trust Superman. This narrative feels flimsy with the sudden appearance of a character that I actually love more than Aquaman, Flash, etc. The acceptance of her was that 'she's pretty and in control' but it felt flat. They should have treated her like they treated each other, her only proof of being trustworthy was that joined in a fight.
But with Superman's identity crises trying to balance his human desire to just do whatever he wants vs. being this special image of a protector was great. I loved the talk with his dad. "I ate cake while horses drowned", Superman accepted himself that he'll make mistakes and he saw Batman as a guy in a costume, a meaningless trouble maker. Up to this point he had felt entirely alone, that his whole identity was just the dream of his father from the farm because he didn't understand the super human unbreakable mind of Bruce that makes them brothers from other mothers. This empowered Superman, seeing her also could have made him feel less alone in the world but i feel like it wasn't handled correctly. Superman's battle with his own role in the world felt amazing when he just ripped the roof off the Batmobile and told Bruce to go home. This isn't Superman, this is a man with super powers. "Wielding it like a kid that found his dad's gun". So his growth in to finding his identity is a great pay off for future films, we get to see him become Superman, not an origin story but the actual human character going through massive changes so he can become the man who saves everyone, fixes everything and smiles the entire time. So doesn't it make sense that the film is poising an idea to you that you should root for him (and Bruce) even though he fails, or is condescending to his own beliefs? it's an aspect of reality rarely put in to characters on screen, as you can tell most people don't like it. But this specialized narrative method is perfect to experiment with in the role of Superman. We always expect our heroes to constantly do right, be what we want at all times but really that's not his character at all. He's a God (Jewish immigrant raised on a farm lol) learning how to be a man and it's great story telling. He's the spirit of America, the leadership we seek from a president and the face of salvation in that he has incredible power and has no idea what to do with it, he showed up in the middle ea.. I mean Africa just to protect his assets with no regard for what his actions will do to the region. Sound familiar?
As for Bruce, what a fucking depressed asshole. i love him so much, he trusts no one, hates everything and just wants to be alone. Even Alfred (new take on Alfred is great too) is a snippy little backhanded compliment spewing snarky prick. They're both depressed, they run a business they both hate (the business of Batman) while also both being highly intelligent and highly trained people. They encompass the military aspect of America perfectly: Incredible planning, infinite money dumped in to tech, everyone and everything is a possible threat and ulcers galore. His arc came together beautifully when he realized that he can't trust himself, he's just as emotionally charged as he fears Superman to be. he feared Superman would be a threat because of his power and inability to control it and suddenly there he is in that scene holding that spear and all engines burning rage because of a planted idea that attempted to beat him down with guilt. You can't fix those kinds of character flaws by just switching to decaff, Bruce has real emotional issues and all the training in the world wont fix it. He needs people he respects to keep in check, he needs to learn how to trust because he has literally never trusted anyone in his life. So this is a major growth for his character too, not an identity issue like Superman but a realization of the person he's become and that he must change. I think this was made clear when he chose not to brand people for death in the prisons.
The "Superman V. Batman" is really talking about their internal struggles and how it projects on to each other. They aren't opposites like Joker and Batman, they're the same person with different perspectives and upbringing making the whole movie take on a larger scope. The "Dawn of Justice" I think is an attempt to explain that this is an awakening for them both, like the first real steps in to becoming super heroes and the characters that we know them as, when their reverie and percipience were taken for granted and never really thought about how the world's greatest detective was made or how the symbol of truth and justice came to be. Of course i'm going to root for heroes who are learning how to be heroes, and I don't mean just figuring out super powers.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 18th May 2016
also
fuck
"No one stays good forever" - Weltall - 18th May 2016
Along similar lines, the judeochristian god, as depicted in the Bible, is a lot like how you described the fearsome image of Superman in Batman's head: a being which has essentially limitless power and abilities, yet lacks emotional maturity and empathy, and therefore does awful shit like slaughtering all the first borns in Egypt because their unelected ruler was being disagreeable, or drowning everyone and everything on earth because some people were misbehaving. That sounds like the most horrifying sort of megalomania and psychopathy. The god of the Old Testament and Jesus hardly seem like the same entity. As the dogma has it, God is right and good even when he does things like that because if he commits genocide, it can only be because his victims deserved it.
However, if you instead view god as an entity who has powers he barely understands and is attempting to learn how to use them (with no help or instruction), god is not a crazed, bloodthirsty tyrant but a child trying to learn. Children can do cruel things, but usually stop once they grasp the concept of cruelty. It would explain the profound difference between the Testaments, and makes god's behavior not just understandable but relateable.
Unfortunately, his believers are far too insecure to accept such a notion.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 19th May 2016
Again, if I actually felt like that was an accurate description of the movie I saw, I would be with you there. But, I don't think they are "learning to be heroes for the first time", I think Zack Snyder is trying to tell us that they already ARE great heroes, "Better than heroes!" according to an interview, because they are smart enough to determine who should live and who should die.
I'm starting to wonder if the climax of Watchmen was misinterpreted by Zacky as a full-on endorsement of Ozy's "kill the world to create world peace" plan. Ozy is smarter than everyone else, so of COURSE he should be the one who gets to decide who lives and who dies. I mean, look at those PLEBIAN FOOLS on the streets, so ignorant of what's outside their bubble it makes me VOMIT IN HORROR! Pah! If a few should die to prevent the idiots of the world from killing more, then all the better!
More to the point, his "edgy deconstruction" comes across as something he wasn't aware was done a billion times already. I have a personal pet peeve, and that's whenever anyone says something they think is brilliant and insightful and iconoclastic, only they don't realize EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY THOUGHT THAT THOUGHT ALREADY! It was the round-up lesson at the end of an episode of Carebears, fer cryin' out loud! Like, X-Men's shoehorned "hating people because they are different is wrong" message. Yes, that's an important message, but to pretend it's something new is a bit insulting. Contrast that with Zootopia. They went a more subtle route. They acknowledged that everyone already knows "specism" is bad and live in a society where everyone is equal. But, that's on the surface. Deeper down, there's systemic prejudice most aren't aware of and minority groups are still suffering for it. It addresses the evils of second-order racist elements to an audience that already knows the overt "burning crosses" form of racism is wrong. It challenges the most prevalent racism that we actually HAVE in the real world today, instead of a ghost from the past that people can use to say they "aren't racist" because they aren't a grand dragon from the 50's, or literally Hitler.
Also compare and contrast Wall-E with literally every Miyazaki movie. Wall-E spends so much time talking about garbage covering the earth and that particular brand of pollution that it skips over how humanity tends to actually care about the pollution it can see, but the big issue today is the pollution we can't see, IE, carbon dioxide. Then it invents some stupid scenario where everyone lets robots do the work for them and evolve into lazy good-for-nothing slugabouts, which is a "dire warning" that doesn't really apply to anyone in the real world, like trying to warn us about the evils of trying to bring your pet dog back to life. In contrast, Miyazaki goes the more subtle route. Spirited Away showed us a river over and over again, just an old nearly dried up thing, only to confront us with the hidden reality of how dirty that seemingly "clean" water was and how it wasn't the result of any one thing but an amalgamation of decades worth of trash. It doesn't go for the giant tower of trash immediately, it goes for the surprising reveal, the one that makes us wonder just how much of our damage to the environment has gone completely unnoticed by us.
Anyway, that was kinda a random aside, but my point is this. Batman v Superman: Court Case of the Century is a conflicted movie that contradicts itself throughout, unless Zack Snyder actually DOES believe that his versions are already heroes in an Ayn Randian way. His recent interviews seem to suggest that, yes, he really DOES believe they are fully formed and idealic heroes already. Here's what puts the lie to it all. Batman in this movie has been Batman for decades. There's no room for him to "grow up" any more. He should have done that a long time ago.
All that said, I still think the DC universe has a chance. I would celebrate these movies if it turned out we were in the "Justice Lords" universe, and all of this was a prelude to them eventually trying to take over the "real" justice league's universe. Make us hate them, then love them, then start introducing DC's vast catalog of unsung heroes.
Such as:
Arm-Fall-Off Boy, with the power to rip off his own arm and beat people up with it.
![[Image: Armfalloffboy.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6f/Armfalloffboy.jpg)
The Codpiece, who's power is to become the living embodiment of phallic imagery
![[Image: 772472-sc002e39bb.jpg]](http://static8.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/0/40/772472-sc002e39bb.jpg)
Matter-Eater Lad, who's power is obvious
![[Image: MEL500.jpg]](http://cdn1-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/05/MEL500.jpg)
And two more: The Defenestrator, who attacks people with entire windows, but pales in comparison to the Dog Welder, who welds dogs to people's faces. The saving grace is, according to those cartoon X's in the dog's eyes, the dog is already dead when this happens.
![[Image: be7cBp2.jpg?1]](http://i.imgur.com/be7cBp2.jpg?1)
I want a deep dive psychological analysis of the hero who welds dogs to villains' faces. We ALL want that.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 19th May 2016
It is there DJ, I feel like you're looking at things from an angle that doesn't quite fit here. You walked away from Zootopia thinking it had messages of racism but it's actually talking about types of people in general and the preemptive judgements we make. Like seeing a cute girl trying to do "man's work" or a literally sheepish desk clerk never being able to lead or make decisions. Instead of race look at the visual joke of the sloths working at the DMV. This isn't an accusation of race, its a trope we all understand because the DMV is always slow. Did you catch what the fox is? Poor people, lower middle class, who have very little except baffling egomania. The country fox that beat up Hops when she was little grew up and became an adult who sells pies and apologized to her for being a douche and that leads in to the larger scale of the story: maturity. This is made visually literal by having a straight up ex con dress as a baby. This also leads in to another factor: just because women are smaller and weaker doesn't mean they can't be a peacekeeper, or a mayor, or a murderer. Small being powerful is show over and over, the possum father ("Mr. Big"), the weasel that none of the larger animal officers could catch, the bustling city of Rodentia, our ex con baby and so on. You can't judge people by appearance or by their upbringing, or even who they used to be. Did you notice that only males are targeted by the conspiracy leader? the leader hates males and wants a future where males are kept in cages because she's sexist and again the surprise here is that you totally didn't see it coming because there's no way to figure a person out and think 'all women...' or 'all men...' do anything. Unless you're a wolf... then you have an uncontrollable desire to howl. Which fits nicely in to the younger mentality of boys who get caught up in organized crime that hoot and holler every time they do anything - notice that they're wolves who just want to be praised for doing good, they're praised for doing bad. Another jab at social structure.
Race has nothing to do with Zootopia. They're not saying all white people should go work on a carrot farm or all black people are dangerous. THAT would be racist, what's being talked about is that we falsely categorize people as a means to keep things under control for our own sake and it only leads to more problems because we lack the maturity to critically evaluate everyone on an individual basis. A deeper point Zootopia attempted to make was the evolution of man through civilization and social awareness, remember the chubby tiger that works the front desk? Eats junk food, acts nearly androgynous, loves his phone apps? He's a completely emasculated male and Hops even reels back when she meets him, uncomfortable because she's never met a male like this. In stark contrast is the extremely masculine tiger who works on the force who is terrifying to Hops. This is a big jab at people who are caged animals - caged in the social constructs of civilization, and of what is acceptable and not acceptable. The tiger at the front desk is eerily close to people we actually know and can be compared to a eunuch, a process done to men to make them more docile. In terms of maturity, remember how the lion mayor tried to hide that he was using the same app on his phone (the singing with shakira one)? he's embarrassed because its not a masculine thing to do and he's trying to keep up an appearance of how he wishes to be viewed by others - that's the immaturity that creates the panic in the city as well. Try watching the movie again without looking at ideals of racism, it's extremely well written and I was dumbfounded by how deep a movie aimed at kids was able to go while maintaining a family friendly scope. Also, Inside Out is genius you should see that too.
Back to BvS, remember that in film writers show instead of tell. They want you to accept that the story has a surface and layers beneath it, the perspectives of the characters is one layer, the perspective of the audience is another and can be totally different things. You're judging the whole painting from what you know now without even attempting to learn the technique, brush stroke, color pallet, choice of medium and etc to fully understand it. Good writing takes ass loads of research and more often than not the audience isn't aware of the things researched to create that end goal, which is how movies can 'grow with you' and take on more meaning as we gain more experience and knowledge. Kubrick was a God at that.
Zack is a funny guy, he's fixated on sexuality and death and most story tellers are but he takes it to literal extremes. To put it in a very generalized nut shell his layer methods are to take current events and repackage them. 300 is the war on terror that in his opinion can not be won (similar in prose to a much more talented director and writer Ridley Scott's view of the "holy wars"), the muslims are demonized, our progression of war against their ideals is made out to be heroic and in a big socioeconomic push the people who don't match our ideals as Americ... Spartans are ignored, categorically round filed and find their independence by joining the muslim's wealth. Suckerpunch is blatantly explaining the victim roles of women, comparing them to children, having them fantasize about all the things women have not or cannot do (from samurai's to world war 2 heroes) and ultimately explaining that happiness can only be found as a woman by killing off the part of their minds that yearn for freedom in an oppressive society, hence the time frame before women's liberation and the "suckerpunch" felt by men who were raised in a belief system where women are indefinitely children to own and order. Watchmen systemically explains that "Someone" (in this case the world's smartest man) caused and capitalized on what is blatantly 9/11 and how the complacency of man in a civilization that is free of terror will create their own terror upon themselves and there is necessity in an outside force to build our resolve and constitution within our borders, so that the terrible act can create a new found patriotism and brotherhood among its peoples and other nations which is exactly what happened after 9/11. See a theme? His Man of Steel brought Zod, a person who carries with him his vast knowledge of his people's history and even their genetic materials with a hatred for anything or anyone that is not his ideals, Zod is introduced as a religious zealot - he is a Muslim extremist who wants to "change the world to fit his people" in this case literally changing the gravity and air. To stop him, Superman had to get dirty.
When the smoke settles we have a monument at "ground zero" for Superman and the people who died during Zod's attack. We have a nation scared shitless (launching a nuke almost the moment something comes out of Zod's ship in BvS), and everyone questions the motives of Superman because his salvation from the alien terrorists came with a heavy price of destruction, America is quite capable of destroying the entire world and acting like a nosy neighbor sticking its nose in to everyone's business. This is made literal as Superman in these series of films is as much a spy as anything else. He even floats in space orbiting earth listening to EVERYTHING just like the patriot act is with satellites and planes (it's a bird (eagle), its a plane (government), etc). Give it another chance before you go comparing anything to the carebears move ever again jesus christ.
Ryan/ yes. Wait until you see the scene where Superman does something in Mexico while celebrating the day of the dead. The religious overtones are a whole layer in BvS which made literal when a badguy says "God vs. man" and then "if man cannot destroy god... then have the devil do it" Also, there is a painting that connects some powerful imagery that fits in the scope of the story extremely well.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 19th May 2016
Also just for fun:
Arm-Fall-Off-Boy - in similar prose to Bizarro he is a dense person who lacks subtlety but at heart yearns to be a hero. These people are real, they want the pageantry of heroics but lack any real understanding. In other words, their morose comes from ego. In wanting to be seen as a hero, as strong, as a better-than-thou individual they actually show themselves to be the sum of their parts and are deconstructed, he uses his arm as a weapon because he is "easily disarmed" as a character.
Codpiece - As with most gun enthusiasts and people who are military trained the gun is seen as an extension of power, hold the gun and you are powerful - have a big hard penis and you're powerful = the gun becomes man-hood. Killing and fucking become synonymous ("I killed that pussy" - "I killed that pussy last night" - "I want to destroy that girl") hence the women running in fear. And again, this actually happens with people, as with all comic book characters they are based on real individuals or collectives.
Matter Eater Lad - His first name is a play on words that comes from the arabic term to have information from god come to you, home planet: (Pepto) "bismoll" as in the thing you take when you eat too much and as "abysmal" which where his character lays - an emotional eater who turns to food to support him emotionally, all he eats is "junk". God is the comic writer and the message to you the viewer from God is to stop emotionally eating.
Dog Welder - we have tons of colloquialisms involving dogs, sleep with them you wake up with fleas, dog tired, you're my dawg, you're in the dog house, etc. In this case Dog Welder is making an important truth real: these people are worthless like a dead dog, so he makes them in to dogs so everyone knows they're worthless. Its an older term, but for example a baker back in the day would say put the dogs out front so they sell first, denoting in idiom that they are the worst ones.
you're welcome xD
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 19th May 2016
I personally found the religious symbolism to be insultingly obvious. Literally everyone I've talked to has told me they found all the Biblical metaphors pretty laughably ham-fisted.
You're right that there's a lot of social commentary going on beyond racism (such as the sexism you're talking about), but you can't pretend there's not also racism commentary there. Watch that news interview where the rabbit goes on about how it's the predators doing this so there's probably some genetic component and tell me that isn't a commentary on cops in the real world who occasionally make the same comments as they try to come up with some explanation for why "the blacks" seem to be doing so much inner city crime. That rabbit was grasping at straws based on what little she knew and didn't "get" why that might be harmful to the fox until he laid it all out for her pretty harshly.
Yes, films have layers, but I really don't think this is going to be some movie that eventually is "understood" as the brilliant and deep onion it truly is, because a lot of those messages were either expressed poorly or are pretty terrible worldviews to begin with.
And also just for fun, you missed one:
The Defenestrator - Windows have been symbolic since their invention for allowing someone on one side to see things on the other side. The eye is the window to the soul. That gave me a window into their world. Windows is an operating system that allows users to "see" how computer files work more intuitively. By literally throwing villains through windows, the defenestrator is telling a narrow-minded thug to open their mind to other possibilities, walk a mile in their victim's shoes. He even threw a police officer through the same window 8 times. Police often see the world in black and white, so he might have been trying to get that police officer to widen his views on justice, and 8 is a number symbolically representing new beginnings, so it's attempting to break down that officer and make him rethink his life and start anew.
This is fun.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 19th May 2016
Unfortunately you're not getting it, you can't just run with something you have to look at what's actually there. It's the literal form of meta, the self referential guidelines act like wayposts while the metaphors use visually literal transposing of a message, it's a form of communication. The guide lines (His use of the term God and devil) is to open up the idea, its the keystone to make you think so you can expose its innards. You're only looking at the keystone.
There is zero racial metaphor in Zootopia, in fact they avoided it like the plague. What you're seeing is your own beliefs projected on the scenes in the movie. The fact that she said "probably some genetic component" made YOU think of blacks, it made YOU think of different races when in reality the genetic component is so inconsequential we barely have a standardized way to actually examine most of it. The genetic component she was referring to is males because Hops is sexist. She hates that she's sexist because she sees herself as being open minded and benevolent but she can't shake the feeling that males will take advantage of her small stature. The film avoided racial discussion entirely. Think of it this way: If you got a job at the DMV you would become a sloth in that universe. If you're a drug addict and a thief in this world, you'll be a weasel in that one. And if you're a violent person, or resort to violence, and rely on your masculinity you become a predator. The meek shall inherit the earth, an enforced belief by the actions of the main villain who is an herbivore and represents not only women but people who are not prone to violence and anger, the people in the real world who are more 'animal' than 'human'. That's all people everywhere, angry Chinese guys, angry Saudi Arabian guys, girls in Kenya that kill men in their sleep, girls in New York who find their boyfriend cheating on them and get in to a violent scuffle. They're all predators - "animalistic" people. It has absolutely nothing to do with race except your own personal projections.
"No one stays good forever" - Dark Jaguar - 23rd May 2016
You really need to trust that people at large actually already know about this stuff. Of course there's a reason why he's got all the Jesus metaphors in there! He first says Superman is totally Jesus, and then wants to ask "okay, that said, what would that MEAN?", but he fumbles the religious symbolism so badly that I just don't even care. He's not saying anything new, at all! That's what I've been trying to say. Of COURSE he's trying to analyze what living breathing Jesus on earth would do to people, but he's BAD AT IT! No one in this movie acts like a believable person at any point! His message falls flat because he's BAD AT STORYTELLING! I should have realized that the last time he suckerpunched me into watching a supposedly "deep" movie.
Incidentally, you are the first person, anywhere, who looks at Hop's treatment of the Fox as being a portrayal of sexism. Women sexist against men is not a real social problem, and having a movie focus a lot of time on that would be grandly insulting to everyone involved. Study the history of racism in American and you'll see all the frankly obvious calls to real-world racism issues. What exactly do you think the message is? "Not all men" or something? Do you honestly think there's a problem with men being disparaged on the news as inherently rapists or something? Do you think that mace was a message about watching out for "dangerous men"? I mean, I can see that, but considering the almost word for word quoting of actual real life stuff that's been said about black violence in the real world, and the constant references to events in American history, well, all I can say is you need to study some American history to really see the greater context of a lot of those scenes. That news scene in particular was a big "yes, Disney GETS it" moment to a LOT of people, and to try and say "sorry black people, I'm taking that away from you because it's really about misandry, a problem that's not prevalent enough to deserve attention unless you're a men's right activist convinced the PC police are coming to confiscate their sex drives", well, no sir I don't like it.
"No one stays good forever" - lazyfatbum - 26th May 2016
Holy shit the ignorance took the wind right out of my sails. You can't possibly be that dumd.. Remove the shell of the movie: a woman who was abused by a male at a young age learns how to live in a male driven world and finds herself learning to trust men again via her new friend - a typical male who sees women as weak and childish who in turn learns that women can be just as shrewd and powerfully dominant as him by using femininity instead of brasher, masculine utility WHICH in turn is learned by the female lead to also have it's place in the dichotomy of social construct. You are either better at "trolling" or worse at smarts DJ ;D
"No one stays good forever" - Sacred Jellybean - 26th May 2016
are you nerds still talking about movies
nerds