Poll

Which film is the best?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
7 (38.9%)
Justice League
0 (0%)
The LEGO Batman Movie
0 (0%)
Logan
2 (11.1%)
Power Rangers
0 (0%)
Spider-Man: Homecoming
2 (11.1%)
Thor: Ragnarok
4 (22.2%)
Wonder Woman
1 (5.6%)
haven't seen enough
2 (11.1%)

Total Members Voted: 18

Author Topic: Superheroes 2017  (Read 7133 times)

Will

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #30 on: November 28, 2017, 03:03:37 AM »
That's a great scene, but to imply that strong moments in cinema are exclusively centered around dialogue instead of visuals is pretty absurd. The whole film has Steve and others restrain her from fighting back, so that moment was quite literally breathtaking. Slow motion done right, to emphasize the moment: here's a female superhero fighting back against the constant sexism and repression from all around her to finally do what she's does best. It's a perfectly modulated, built up moment, one that I - and many more as I previously mentioned - found mesmerizing. They could've gave her a regular origin story where she's just the super solider they put on the frontline, but she's repeatedly forced to compromise herself up until that point for men who "know better". It's novel not only because it's proudly feminist, but also because it's a glorious moment of fulfilling an identity.

My reaction was perhaps more muted because I had heard there was this awesome 'trench' scene before I watched the movie, I knew by the convention of the genre and the film's title that Wonder Woman was going to eventually cut loose and kick ass (though it's still a thrill watching it actually happen), and I didn't feel the film was building up to this because we had all that wonderful feminist warrior action on Themyscira. But, like I said, muted, not cancelled out. I definitely see your point, and I love the visual bookends starting with the overhead shot of WW taking all the gunfire and ending with the leaping kick out of the window.

WONDER WOMAN is a story about how an idealist learns to accept nihilism then continues to be an idealist anyway. By the end of the film, she realizes that the world is pretty much shit but as long as she has power, she can stand up against it. My favorite thing about the film - which seems to go unnoticed - is how the sword is said to be what gives her the power, but at the end she realizes the power is her. It's pretty simple, but the destruction of the sword - which in many feminist lens is seen as a phallic symbol of male power - shows that women don't need anything of man's world to be truly powerful.

There's a real thematic arc here that appears missing in the MCU films. I loved Vulture in SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING because his character was actually about something: looking out for his family in a devastated economy. I could care less about Spidey wanting to be an Avenger. As Adam points out in his review, there's not really a true character arc either.

Same with RAGNAROK - I don't care a whole lot about Thor and his ascension to the throne. The initial reason I loved Thor was his arc towards humility in the first installment. He's an ego-driven God in that film that begins to change when he starts caring about other people than himself. By the time RAGNAROK comes around, that's already firmly established, so I ask you, what's his arc in RAGNAROK? It doesn't seem to end up being very strong or novel. I would venture to say that it's roughly the same arc as the first - you don't need your hammer.

I'd make a full argument as why GUARDIANS VOLUME 2 arc is roughly the same as the first, but the film was so bland it's already fading fast from my memory. Also, I'm tired.

oldkid

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #31 on: November 28, 2017, 03:29:23 AM »
Why Guardians of the Galaxy is the best Superhero movie of 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VulkN5OLEM

In sum:
GotG2 isn't just a rehash of the first film, but is actually full of themes that the first one wasn't.  Namely, talking about the nature of fatherhood and a takedown of toxic masculinity.   Not only is it the funniest of the Superhero films this year (with Spiderman a close second in my book, and the main reason I watch Marvel films), but it actually created some excellent character moments from characters we thought couldn't have any moments.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #32 on: November 28, 2017, 03:45:46 AM »
All the character moments in GOG2 are fake because the movie tries to retconn your memory to con you into believing they are all rooted in scenes in the previous movie. They're not. The movie does a complete and unjustified 180 on Mary Poppins and does things the first one should have done, like giving secondary characters a personality, without acknowledging the fact they were blank slates. It would have worked as an original, but as a sequel, it is just a tribute to how poorly written GOG1 was.

I still don't buy the working class family man Michael Keaton thing. Half of his actions cannot be justified by those things. During most of the movie he's a millionaire trying to not go back into the upper middle class and he behaves like a sociopath. Also, his anger is bogus. It totally makes sense to have a war zone filled with dangerous tech be cleaned up by a tech genius with government connections who used to be a weapons specialist. Seriously, if 9/11 had left uranium fragments on the site or something, would you have trusted Joe the Plumber with cleaning the wreckage?

I am now thinking WW could have been so much more feminist. By the end of the movie, the main arc is about Diana's learning to navigate a world that doesn't fit her simplistic worldview, and very little is achieved in the matter of sticking it to the man. Aside from the occasional « That's a woman! » joke, she encounters no male opposition whatsoever.

If we're talking about clichés in superhero movies and overdone tropes, you have to recognise that « The power was inside you all along. » has to be in the top 5 of been there done that. You even mention how it is present in Thor.

I will admit Ragnarok doesn't have much in the way of character arcs. Valkyrie has one, albeit not a very good one. Banner/Hulk too, in a way. The most important one to me though is the Loki/Thor relationship arc, which is always a bit dodgy, but I thought this movie had the best one of all.

In Homecoming Peter learns the value of not becoming an Avenger and sticking to his roots, giving himself time to be a kid who moonlights as a friendly neighbourhood superhero. Given how many teenagers cannot wait to grow up and do adult things, I think there's value there.
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Will

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #33 on: November 28, 2017, 04:27:16 AM »
Why Guardians of the Galaxy is the best Superhero movie of 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VulkN5OLEM

In sum:
GotG2 isn't just a rehash of the first film, but is actually full of themes that the first one wasn't.  Namely, talking about the nature of fatherhood and a takedown of toxic masculinity.   Not only is it the funniest of the Superhero films this year (with Spiderman a close second in my book, and the main reason I watch Marvel films), but it actually created some excellent character moments from characters we thought couldn't have any moments.

"Adopted son" but more like "child slave". Child trafficking is something that Lindsay, for whatever reason, just wants to avoid here, despite it being literally what Yondu is known for. Yondu may have let him go, but I'm willing to wager most 19th century slavers eventually grow an attachment to their slaves.

I like that she acknowledges the unjustified abuse of Mantis played for humor which is arguably why you shouldn't consider it the best superhero movie of 2017 (that's still THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI but I digress), not only because it plays into the Asian stereotype but it reduces a woman's value to her appearance. And that view and those jokes are not challenged. At all. 

That said, there's some stuff here that makes me appreciate a bit more, particularly the stuff about toxic masculinity amongst the main characters. Makes me rethink some things. It's a bummer that a lot of it is layered under so much uninspired humor and action scenes but ok ok.

oldkid

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #34 on: November 28, 2017, 04:32:30 AM »
It's a bummer that a lot of it is layered under so much uninspired humor and action scenes but ok ok.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

Will

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #35 on: November 28, 2017, 04:45:45 AM »

I am now thinking WW could have been so much more feminist. By the end of the movie, the main arc is about Diana's learning to navigate a world that doesn't fit her simplistic worldview, and very little is achieved in the matter of sticking it to the man. Aside from the occasional « That's a woman! » joke, she encounters no male opposition whatsoever.


All the men are telling her "your simplistic worldview doesn't work" and she rejects that fact until she can't anymore. She accepts it, but rejects the notion that this fact should break her spirit. It's a coming-of-age princess film wrapped in superhero tropes.


 Aside from the occasional « That's a woman! » joke, she encounters no male opposition whatsoever.


This is just patently false as Steve is constantly telling her what not to do once they get to England, then to the trenches, and beyond. He's always instructing her on how to behave. The out-of-the-trench moment is born out of her standing up to him.


If we're talking about clichés in superhero movies and overdone tropes, you have to recognise that « The power was inside you all along. » has to be in the top 5 of been there done that. You even mention how it is present in Thor.


I already covered this, but I will spell it out further: the fact that the film's underlying theme throughout the movie is about women standing up to men, whether its subtle (Steve) or overt (Ares/Ludendoff) is what makes the <power was inside you all along> trope feel refreshing. It's not literally about that trope, but it's about how that trope that is reframed, specifically through the subtext and symbology all throughout the film, that gives the trope a new meaning.


In Homecoming Peter learns the value of not becoming an Avenger and sticking to his roots, giving himself time to be a kid who moonlights as a friendly neighbourhood superhero. Given how many teenagers cannot wait to grow up and do adult things, I think there's value there.

He has a conclusion, but not so much an arc. As Adam points out in his filmspotting review, he doesn't do anything differently from the beginning of the film to reach that arc. He just gets lucky.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #36 on: November 28, 2017, 05:11:57 AM »
Steve is not the embodiment of the patriarchy trying to keep a woman down. He tells her not to get out of the trench because it is generally not advisable to walk into a no man's land with hundreds of Germans aiming at you. It has nothing to do with her being a woman. And when he tells her not to talk in front of politicians and such, he is asking her to keep decorum. Steve is basically on board with her from the beginning and what he comes to learn is not that women can have power but that this specific woman doesn't have much to fear from guns, so it's okay if she takes point.

Steve is acting as a guide in a world she doesn't know. He's the nice Japanese woman in Shogun trying to get Richard Chamberlain out of trouble, but he's an idiot, so he disregards her advice and keeps on cocking up and takes ages to figure out that maybe these "savages" are not completely uncivilised after all. Diana is similarly dumb in the movie. When she refuses to listen to what men tell her, she's not being a strong independent woman, she is refusing to learn about a world she knows nothing about and to adapt to its norms. It's okay for her not to want to be treated like a second class not-technically-a-citizen, but that is hardly what most of those scenes are about.
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Will

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #37 on: November 28, 2017, 02:53:40 PM »
Steve is not the embodiment of the patriarchy trying to keep a woman down.

This is a straw man fallacy. I'm arguing that he stands in Diana's way for the entire movie despite the fact that he's seen her incredible powers because he believes he thinks he knows better (and he's proven wrong again and again). I don't think he's the embodiment of patriarchy. I think his actions are probably well intentioned, but nevertheless are sexist. Please don't misrepresent my argument in this overly exaggerated way. It doesn't make me want to continue this conversation.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #38 on: November 29, 2017, 03:34:48 AM »
Misunderstanding your argument is not the same as misrepresenting it. And Steve has good reason to think he knows better. Diana is strong, not invulnerable. He doesn't know her limits. It is reasonable for him to assume waling into no man's land is suicidal. And some things have nothing to do with how strong Diana is. Some things she cannot do because she has no idea how the world works and her approach is erroneous.
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smirnoff

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Re: Superheroes 2017
« Reply #39 on: November 30, 2017, 08:45:43 PM »
All the character moments in GOG2 are fake because the movie tries to retconn your memory to con you into believing they are all rooted in scenes in the previous movie. They're not. The movie does a complete and unjustified 180 on Mary Poppins and does things the first one should have done, like giving secondary characters a personality, without acknowledging the fact they were blank slates. It would have worked as an original, but as a sequel, it is just a tribute to how poorly written GOG1 was.

I didn't find myself jarred at all by gotg2. Like who would be an example of a character a character that was a blank slate in 1, so I have a sense of what you mean? Or who did a 180?

 

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