Are comic book films taking away the fun of going to theaters

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We are very much on the same page here, except that that's Batman's justification, not the film's. I actually wrote an entire essay about this (Christopher Nolan's Useful Lies). Short version is: the movies aren't endorsing that view at all. If you'd rather not read it I can try to summarize.
The justification which Batman (Batman the character) offers is the only justification 99% of the audience of that film is going to perceive. We can attempt to parse Nolan's sub-text/hidden meanings (what was Cobb's Talisman?), and structural pretzels (Wow, that's complicated Nolan... ...are we moving backwards or forwards in time now? Are we in a flashback or the present? What is happening in that Tesseract? What "level of Inception" are we at now?), but the author's intention is not regulative of the audience's experience. Batman is "platformed" by the film as the hero of the film. He solves problems with superior technology and physical prowess. He ain't wearing hockey pads. And he is proved the hero. And let's remember that we're talking about the most cerebral of these films. Nolan's Batman is as "smart" as these films get.
While I agree there is sometimes a "chosen one" element, I think some of those examples are the opposite. Thor's hammer isn't wielded by Thor just because he's throw, but by anyone worthy.
Yes, any person who is better than 99% of the sentient life in the universe may wield Thor's Hammer. What matters is that they are given the power because they ARE better. Might proves right (argument by sign), so we are assured that the good guy's punching out evil can let it all hang out. Dammit, they're justified!
Ditto for being "noble" enough to use the Lantern Ring.
Yes, yes. And ANY pure Aryan was good enough for Adolf. You too could join the National Socialists or even the S.S. Corps. and get yourself a cool outfit.
That's an important element: that's specifically countering the "chosen one" stuff.
Not really. You have to be a specific person chosen by a Lantern Ring. You are right, because you have been made powerful, because you are chosen. Might is a sign of right. The very fact that you have great power is proof that you are worthy of that responsibility (you need not question yourself dear viewer -- go out and smash evil -- it's OK!).

You are not the only hero in the world; there are other people who are more powerful and better than everyone else, a super-race of chosen protectors, each with their special gifts, but the cool kids are still from Hogwarts and the Muggles need to stand aside.

The "better than" you're describing is the "pure of heart" better than, which is not might makes right at all.
Well, that's always the official story, isn't it? I mean, did America really cease all offensive military operations when they changed the nameplate from Department of War to Department of Defense in 1949? I wonder if anything had recently happened which would have left the United States in a position where they'd need some happy euphemisms?

And the logical circuit still remains. Might proves right. The fact that you have been made mighty is a sign of your rightness, because you live in a meaningful/purposeful universe in which cosmic powers and agencies make sure that the pure of heart are made our heroes. How do we know you are right? We know because a purposeful universe has made you mighty. Now get out there and punch some things, kid! The world needs you!
Yeah, this is definitely a thing that exists. I like those stories, too, but I think those are pretty different from most superhero films.
Even heroes who begin with backstories that are purely contingent (those laboratory accident backstories) converge with a view of a purpose-driven universe selecting our betters to serve as Achilles without approval of mere muggles. The Flash, for example, is made speedy by some nonsense accident, but over time we learn that the Speed Farce is animated by it's own will, a larger force for good which works to, among other things, protect the temporal order of history. Spider Man starts off as a kid who is what he by pure chance, but by the time we discover MAGIC (f***cking literal magic holding everything together) and the wider multiverse, we learn that everything is happening for a reason, and that Parker is part of this meaningful universe.
I think whatever we do with it, it's on us. I like your Twinkie example. I don't want Twinkies to go away. I just don't want people to try to make them into a main course. Some people do, but that doesn't sour me on the whole concept or think that it doesn't have a lot of value and use.
I don't see a lot of value or use in a Twinkie (diabetes in snack-cake form, mummified with preservatives), myself. And at a certain point, if you really care about other people and your society, you have to speak up and say, "Dude, we've got to chill with the Twinkies."
But I will agree with maybe the implication here, that some people care way too much about this. To the degree I've cared about MCU films (and I have! And I am 100% not embarrassed by it) it's been the degree to which they reminded me of ideas and concepts I hold dear. The people who watch and deeply care about every single output of that machine, who react to every development in even the mundane soap opera quality twists and turns, are pretty alien to me.
I recently realized something that I don't like about G.R.R. Martin's approach to fantasy, at least as I have seen it depicted by HBO (I have not read the books, and refuse to do so unless and until he finishes the story -- I am not committing to all those pages just get a rug-pull when he kicks over without having written the final book).

His big idea, as I understand it, is to give us real people who live in a fantastic universe. He is an anti-Tolkien. Our humans are "all too human." The result is that the fantasy (that promise of transcendent meaning -- who does the red witch really serve, why are they white walkers doing what they're doing) devolves into mundane accidents of who is boinking whom, which party is nursing a petty jealousy against some other party, etc. In short, it gives us a soap opera.

It is here that you should sense apparent weakness in my argument, a contradiction to be seized upon. Up to this point I have been complaining about Super-Hero fantasies offering a purpose-driven universe in which there is a purpose, a grand design, and in which our heroes are chosen by fate. And yet, when GRRM offers us a mundane universe, I complain that it is devoid of deeper meaning, a mere soap opera. We shift from the transcendent to the mere gossip of "how things happened to happen." Can I escape the contradiction? Or am I just a malcontent?

What disappoints me, I think, is that Super-Hero Movies and GRRM (a lensed through Home Box Office) have a low view of humanity. Martin's "realistic" view of humanity is that of a soap-opera in which Hobbesian self-interested pigs do Hobbesian pig things, two steps away from a state of nature in which life is brutish, nasty, and short. I find this both repugnant and wrong. People are amazingly cooperative critters. We're not so simple as self-interested ego machines, but an evolutionary product of reciprocal altruism in which we really do care about each other, in which we quite commonly set aside our personal interests for the greater good. If the state of nature were, as Hobbes imagines it, "the purge," we would not have survived long enough to form civilizations in the first place. Martin revels too much in the low, Hobbesean view of the human person. I think J.S. Mill is right in saying that such a view says more about the person forwarding the view than the human race itself (i.e., we are not pigs, but you might be).

What disappoints me, on the other hand, with the transcendent fantasy/mythology of the super-hero genre (that purpose-driven universe in which our heroes are chosen and protected by fate) is that the transcendence to which the point is also so very low. Some people are bad. Some people are good. The good people who are stronger than everyone else must go out and apply violence to the bad people until they are no longer a threat. Rinse and repeat. That is, the God running the MCU is a five-year-old. There is no prospect of the sublime here. We don't leave these movies more complicated, ready to face the challenges of our own lives, but rather we are given a release, a pornographic safety-valve for our impotence, rage, and uncertainty (HULK SMASH!!!). We leave the film slightly dumber than when we went into it. The film believes we are stupid and tells us a stupid story, and just as much as people can rise to a challenge, they can also sink into lowered expectations.

In short, what bothers me is not the purposeless universe of Martin or the Cosmic Multiverse of the MCU, but rather the low view and low expectations of both.



I don't actually wear pants.
I am turned off enough by the newer material, aside from Japanese and Korean, that I barely go to the cinema anymore. It's not just the comic book films that turn me away, but every other not-Japanese and not-Korean film does it, too. The cinema is awesome if they show the right movies, but my tastes don't reflect the local market, so I'm scant on desire to go there.
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mattiasflgrtll6's Avatar
The truth is in here
Driving a far way to see a movie does sound irritating, but in general you create the fun yourself. People going to see the 1000th Marvel or DC adaptation doesn't ruin my experience since I can always go see something that looks more interesting. Recently for example I saw Triangle Of Sadness, which I really loved.

The only major downside is that some of the smaller movie have very short theater runs. With some I can decide to go see it a month or two after its premiere and it's already gone. They need to give us a chance to save up money and attend them whenever possible.



It's not just that they are comic book movies. It's the fact that they only characters they present are buff, monosyllabic specimens in spandex, always striking the same "heroic" poses that comix started showing in 1950. Ya' got good spandex characters, bad spandex characters, super powers of mysterious origin, but it's still the same damn thing, over and over, as I said, like good guys, bad guys, ranchers, The Marshall, and bar maids in old westerns.

Studios spend big bucks on these things, in a big gamble that people will turn out in large numbers and deem the movie a success or failure based on the turnout on weekend one. Do they take away the fun?

I don't know for sure, but they have to keep the audience young and naive, so they don't get my attitude, but having been to a number of these movies, I also seem to notice that the people coming out are never as wired as they were going in. At some point, even a 15 year old realizes that they've seen this formula before. Honestly, I don't see as many amped-up kids standing in line anymore, especially since they can stream it shortly. The thrill is gone, and not just for me.

As for the fun of going to movies, it doesn't effect me very much since I know where these flix are showing and decide whether I want to do that tonight. I'm lucky to have several downtown theaters that downplay the spandex movies, show a variety of different genres, so superhero FX movies are only one of the choices. That's an OK place to be.



A system of cells interlinked
No, it's the kid on his phone, crinkling up his candy wrapper that is taking away the fun at the theater!
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



No, it's the kid on his phone, crinkling up his candy wrapper that is taking away the fun at the theater!
Totally this!


Oh and the inevitable grumpy old fart that hollers at them too



No, it's the kid on his phone, crinkling up his candy wrapper that is taking away the fun at the theater!

When you have a big screen and sound system at home, when you have popcorn available for less than $15, when you have your own private bathroom, when you can pause or rewind at will, all of this seems to outweigh the communal bond of watching a film with people who can't name two supreme court justices. We just don't need theaters anymore. And I say this as someone who dedicated a large portion of his life dedicated to the social ritual of "going to the movies."



A system of cells interlinked
When you have a big screen and sound system at home, when you have popcorn available for less than $15, when you have your own private bathroom, when you can pause or rewind at will, all of this seems to outweigh the communal bond of watching a film with people who can't name two supreme court justices. We just don't need theaters anymore. And I say this as someone who dedicated a large portion of his life dedicated to the social ritual of "going to the movies."
But... Dune on the Dolby DLX was unsurpassed!

I still like the movies, AND I can name all the supreme court justices, if only because their names are constantly being kicked around online these days...



They're not just bland, but insidiously insipid. Alan Moore had it right. These are stupid stories for simple people.

Take the latest DCU offering, Black Adam (which is really just "The Rock" playing "The Rock," so they really missed the opportunity to name it "Black Rock").
Bad day at Black Rock!



The justification which Batman (Batman the character) offers is the only justification 99% of the audience of that film is going to perceive. We can attempt to parse Nolan's sub-text/hidden meanings (what was Cobb's Talisman?), and structural pretzels (Wow, that's complicated Nolan... ...are we moving backwards or forwards in time now? Are we in a flashback or the present? What is happening in that Tesseract? What "level of Inception" are we at now?), but the author's intention is not regulative of the audience's experience. Batman is "platformed" by the film as the hero of the film. He solves problems with superior technology and physical prowess. He ain't wearing hockey pads. And he is proved the hero. And let's remember that we're talking about the most cerebral of these films. Nolan's Batman is as "smart" as these films get.
Certainly Batman is the hero of the film, but that in way no precludes him making mistakes. Half the trilogy is him bemoaning his mistakes. He openly and repeatedly talks about them. Alfred calls him out for them, even! And if there's one character in a Batman movie who has more moral authority than Batman, it's Alfred. It's closer to suptextual than subtextual.

I think the biggest disconnect we have here is that you equate protagonist with hero to a much higher degree than I do. The reason comic book films are such a big deal, and making money from adults and not children or adolescents, is specifically because they've drifted pretty far away from that overlap.

Yes, any person who is better than 99% of the sentient life in the universe may wield Thor's Hammer. What matters is that they are given the power because they ARE better. Might proves right (argument by sign), so we are assured that the good guy's punching out evil can let it all hang out. Dammit, they're justified! Yes, yes. And ANY pure Aryan was good enough for Adolf. You too could join the National Socialists or even the S.S. Corps. and get yourself a cool outfit.
It doesn't matter if it's 10% or 1% or whatever, the point is that it's tied to virtue.

It's easy to say "right makes might" is actually really similar to "might makes right" (all you need to do is reverse it!), but the flow of causality being one way and not the other is the whole point.

Not really. You have to be a specific person chosen by a Lantern Ring.
Chosen how? By how noble you are? I'm not a Green Lantern guy, I'm just using your own description of it.

Well, that's always the official story, isn't it? I mean, did America really cease all offensive military operations when they changed the nameplate from Department of War to Department of Defense in 1949? I wonder if anything had recently happened which would have left the United States in a position where they'd need some happy euphemisms?
"The bad guys think they're virtuous, too!" is, first of all, an entirely different argument than the one we began with (that these films are telling us "might makes right"). And that doesn't make these films a special case, either. Don't bad guys co-opt anything good for their own end? Bad guys usually think they're good guys. This is a universal thing, not something specific to superhero/fantasy films.

Frankly, it'd be infantile (if not dangerous) to use these stories to tell people that evil is easily identifiable and rotten to its core, as opposed to a perverted goodness. When we exaggerate evil and how it comes to be, we help blind people to real-life examples of it, which are always more nuanced. For example, films with abusive relationships that are obviously abusive causing people to doubt whether they're in one, because it's not as clear as the abuse they see in fiction.

And the logical circuit still remains. Might proves right.
In a logical circuit it matters very much which way the output is directed.

The fact that you have been made mighty is a sign of your rightness, because you live in a meaningful/purposeful universe in which cosmic powers and agencies make sure that the pure of heart are made our heroes.
I think that's backwards: they're our heroes because they're pure of heart.

I don't see a lot of value or use in a Twinkie (diabetes in snack-cake form, mummified with preservatives), myself. And at a certain point, if you really care about other people and your society, you have to speak up and say, "Dude, we've got to chill with the Twinkies."
If they're the staple of someone's diet, sure. Hence all that stuff I said at the end about grown men and women who weirdly die with the MCU itself. Wouldn't wanna live in a world where I couldn't occasionally enjoy some junk food, though.

It's possible this particular strand of the discussion is being influenced by the fact that I particularly enjoy Twinkies, though. Man, it's been awhile since I had one. Have you ever put them in the freezer?! Wait, maybe that's what you meant by "chill with the Twinkies."

His big idea, as I understand it, is to give us real people who live in a fantastic universe. He is an anti-Tolkien. Our humans are "all too human." The result is that the fantasy (that promise of transcendent meaning -- who does the red witch really serve, why are they white walkers doing what they're doing) devolves into mundane accidents of who is boinking whom, which party is nursing a petty jealousy against some other party, etc. In short, it gives us a soap opera.
This is his stated rationale, yeah. I always thought it was kind of silly, myself. Anyone who's read Tolkien knows that on a moment-to-moment level there's plenty of simple humanity and God knows there's a lot of frailty and flaw in them all. I think people who describe it as being less "nuanced" or "realistic" than Martin's stuff are really just expressing a modern sensibility that isn't any more either of those things. It's just intensely character-focused and/or nihilistic, usually at the expense of lots of other things.

It is here that you should sense apparent weakness in my argument, a contradiction to be seized upon. Up to this point I have been complaining about Super-Hero fantasies offering a purpose-driven universe in which there is a purpose, a grand design, and in which our heroes are chosen by fate. And yet, when GRRM offers us a mundane universe, I complain that it is devoid of deeper meaning, a mere soap opera. We shift from the transcendent to the mere gossip of "how things happened to happen." Can I escape the contradiction? Or am I just a malcontent?
Your words! But nah, I support the intellectual coherence of having problems with both ends of the spectrum here. Thinking you're obligated to like the opposite extreme of a thing you criticize is Internet-think at its worst, so I wouldn't go after you for that. But I appreciate you talking about it preemptively/anticipating counters and not making me respond in obvious ways.

What disappoints me, I think, is that Super-Hero Movies and GRRM (a lensed through Home Box Office) have a low view of humanity. Martin's "realistic" view of humanity is that of a soap-opera in which Hobbesian self-interested pigs do Hobbesian pig things, two steps away from a state of nature in which life is brutish, nasty, and short. I find this both repugnant and wrong. People are amazingly cooperative critters. We're not so simple as self-interested ego machines, but an evolutionary product of reciprocal altruism in which we really do care about each other, in which we quite commonly set aside our personal interests for the greater good. If the state of nature were, as Hobbes imagines it, "the purge," we would not have survived long enough to form civilizations in the first place. Martin revels too much in the low, Hobbesean view of the human person. I think J.S. Mill is right in saying that such a view says more about the person forwarding the view than the human race itself (i.e., we are not pigs, but you might be).
I agree with all this, I think.

What disappoints me, on the other hand, with the transcendent fantasy/mythology of the super-hero genre (that purpose-driven universe in which our heroes are chosen and protected by fate) is that the transcendence to which the point is also so very low. Some people are bad. Some people are good. The good people who are stronger than everyone else must go out and apply violence to the bad people until they are no longer a threat. Rinse and repeat. That is, the God running the MCU is a five-year-old. There is no prospect of the sublime here. We don't leave these movies more complicated, ready to face the challenges of our own lives, but rather we are given a release, a pornographic safety-valve for our impotence, rage, and uncertainty (HULK SMASH!!!). We leave the film slightly dumber than when we went into it. The film believes we are stupid and tells us a stupid story, and just as much as people can rise to a challenge, they can also sink into lowered expectations.
I agree with your syllogism, just not with the premise that the MCU is saying "some people are bad. Some people are good." The heroes are appropriately flawed. Hell, the Big Bad of the second Avengers film is entirely of their own making, and they literally screw up internally so badly that there's a film called Civil War all about them fighting themselves. Turning them against one another is Loki's primary strategy in the first big team up, too. Stark's the genesis for all of it and his story is one where he has to renounce literally everything he's done to that point.

This is kind of why the MCU's been such a hit: because it's not just Superman being super good and perfect, it's not just the good guys unambiguously winning and emerging from the first page with a fully-formed and never-doubted ideology of how to fight or behave. They screw up plenty. Entire films are about those screwups. They're still fairy tales, still mythology, but they have to exist in the modern world, and that's how they try to square that circle.



When you have a big screen and sound system at home, when you have popcorn available for less than $15, when you have your own private bathroom, when you can pause or rewind at will, all of this seems to outweigh the communal bond of watching a film with people who can't name two supreme court justices. We just don't need theaters anymore. And I say this as someone who dedicated a large portion of his life dedicated to the social ritual of "going to the movies."
Same. Including the part at the end. I adored the theater experience for a very long time, but now as soon as I go I'm on high alert for talk, for screens popping up in my periphery at full brightness, and I almost invariably get hit with multiple instances of both every single time. It's just not worth it, particularly if you're someone who has any form of hypervigilance.

There's one or two a year I'll make an exception for, though. Those are often big event films, the crowds, despite being larger, are often more tolerable because everyone else there is excited to see it, and because noise is better when the whole crowd is reacting and buzzing the whole time, I guess.



Certainly Batman is the hero of the film, but that in way no precludes him making mistakes. Half the trilogy is him bemoaning his mistakes. He openly and repeatedly talks about them. Alfred calls him out for them, even! And if there's one character in a Batman movie who has more moral authority than Batman, it's Alfred. It's closer to suptextual than subtextual.
Fair enough. My suspicion is that you are far more subtle than most the of the viewing audience and that the actual function of the movie is at the surface and not in the depths.

I think the biggest disconnect we have here is that you equate protagonist with hero to a much higher degree than I do. The reason comic book films are such a big deal, and making money from adults and not children or adolescents, is specifically because they've drifted pretty far away from that overlap.
I think that the Batman films are presenting us Batman as a hero. He does care. He does sacrifice. He does have lines he will not across (although he will "let die" if the baddie is a big enough pain in the rear, and he will temporarily spy on all of Gotham to catch Bane when circumstances are exigent). We are invited to identify with him. He is the good guy, especially compared with impotent or crooked cops and bureaucrats, and with the super-bads who torment the city. He submits himself to mortal dangers in deadly combat engaging in feats of skill and cunning. If he isn't being offered to us as a hero (with a few complications to justify all that sexy broodiness), who is?

It doesn't matter if it's 10% or 1% or whatever, the point is that it's tied to virtue.
I disagree. It does matter that only the barest minority of the human population might wield Thor's Hammer or find themselves wearing a power ring. The smaller the percentage the stronger the sign. If everyone could pick up Thor's Hammer, if Mulnir were a weapon of easy virtue, it would not be an accomplishment to wield it, would it? It would not be that might proves right, but that it is nice to have a toy. But this is NOT the deal. Almost NO ONE can pick up the hammer or wear the ring. Thus, that you can is a STRONG proof of your RARE super-virtues. That you are mighty proves you are right (i.e., you know you're the good guy, because you were selected to have the powers). So, on the contrary, not only do the percentages matter, they are central to my argument.

It's easy to say "right makes might" is actually really similar to "might makes right" (all you need to do is reverse it!), but the flow of causality being one way and not the other is the whole point.
The argument by sign remains. That you are mighty is still a proof that you're right. It is not the Divine Command Theory of Violence (Might Directly Makes Right), but that your might is a STRONG SIGN that you are right (otherwise the universe would not have given you your magical powers).

Chosen how? By how noble you are? I'm not a Green Lantern guy, I'm just using your own description of it.
All of this varies from story to story, hero to hero, but the basic formula is the same. But yes, the universe filters for virtue. At the most coarse level it is the universe itself (multiverse, cosmic, back from the dead, timeline-bending) picking the right person to be made mighty. At a more concrete level there is some committee who decides that "You're It!" (e.g., a supreme court of Wizards decide who will say SHAZAAM!). At the most immediate level, a magical weapon decides directly whom it will serve (e.g., the Sword in the Stone, the Hammer of Thor). But the pattern is all the same. You are hero because you have the magical power.

"The bad guys think they're virtuous, too!" is, first of all, an entirely different argument than the one we began with (that these films are telling us "might makes right"). And that doesn't make these films a special case, either. Don't bad guys co-opt anything good for their own end? Bad guys usually think they're good guys. This is a universal thing, not something specific to superhero/fantasy films.
Sure, but that's not my point. My point is that we need to be careful with the casual fantasy self-justifications we take from these movies or we're more likely to be a villain who thinks himself a hero (those who are mighty are mighty for a reason, and therefore have a special mandate to act). The danger is stupidly convincing yourself that YOU are Superman or a Green Lantern or "the Greatest Generation" or that your nation should be "the policeman of the world", etc.

Frankly, it'd be infantile (if not dangerous) to use these stories to tell people that evil is easily identifiable and rotten to its core, as opposed to a perverted goodness. When we exaggerate evil and how it comes to be, we help blind people to real-life examples of it, which are always more nuanced. For example, films with abusive relationships that are obviously abusive causing people to doubt whether they're in one, because it's not as clear as the abuse they see in fiction.
Am I misreading you? You seem to somewhat weaken your own point at the end. I'm tired, maybe I missed it. But superhero movies aren't much on subtlety and will not present the nuances and the banality of evil. The audience will not "see" the evil in the real world unless they go nuclear (e.g., everyone's a Nazi that I don't like). I probably missed your point here.

In a logical circuit it matters very much which way the output is directed.
In this case, it's not a question of flow, but the wiring of the circuit. My circuit of argument by sign which show/demonstrates that the "hero" is justified because they are mighty. At the end of the day, if you can pick up the Hammer, then YOU are righteous. That is, if you still have you're might, you're still right. That's dangerous.

I think that's backwards: they're our heroes because they're pure of heart.
Sure, that's the official story, that's the fig-leaf for all the violence. But let's be honest, at the end of the day we just want to feel good about watching cool people kick-ass and we don't want a big guilt trip or life-transformation out of it (i.e., it IS a Twinkie and not high French Cuisine), and the "pure of heart" tag is just enough to serve as a cardboard justification for all the violence, threatening, and coercing. But the EZ-Mac message also indicates another message (the argument by sign).
If they're the staple of someone's diet, sure. Hence all that stuff I said at the end about grown men and women who weirdly die with the MCU itself. Wouldn't wanna live in a world where I couldn't occasionally enjoy some junk food, though.
Everything the proper proportion.

It's possible this particular strand of the discussion is being influenced by the fact that I particularly enjoy Twinkies, though. Man, it's been awhile since I had one. Have you ever put them in the freezer?! Wait, maybe that's what you meant by "chill with the Twinkies."
Freezer, eh? Don't know that one, however, I will say that Hostess Cupcakes ain't bad out of the freezer.

This is his stated rationale, yeah. I always thought it was kind of silly, myself. Anyone who's read Tolkien knows that on a moment-to-moment level there's plenty of simple humanity and God knows there's a lot of frailty and flaw in them all. I think people who describe it as being less "nuanced" or "realistic" than Martin's stuff are really just expressing a modern sensibility that isn't any more either of those things. It's just intensely character-focused and/or nihilistic, usually at the expense of lots of other things.
Yeah, there is something missing in Martin. "When keeping it real goes wrong"?

I'll get to the rest later.



Thanks for the convo.



I agree with your syllogism, just not with the premise that the MCU is saying "some people are bad. Some people are good." The heroes are appropriately flawed. Hell, the Big Bad of the second Avengers film is entirely of their own making, and they literally screw up internally so badly that there's a film called Civil War all about them fighting themselves. Turning them against one another is Loki's primary strategy in the first big team up, too. Stark's the genesis for all of it and his story is one where he has to renounce literally everything he's done to that point.


Out everyone who has done it, the MCU - from Ironman to Endgame - did it best. Yes, the text offers apparent complications, but the performative aspect (SMASH! KICK! POW! BANG! -- And look cool AF doing it!) is still the same, as is the subtext. Hulk is still smashing. Hordes of spammed CGI minions still need to taste the fury of the assembled(!) Avengers.



Civil War flirted with the idea with our heroes submitting to a higher power, their might only being right if they had a U.N. mandate and if they played by the UN's bureaucratic rules, but we knew that wasn't going to last. Half the Avengers Noped(!) out directly. Moreover, it was the most "noble" and least practical of the Avengers who did this (e.g., Captain America vs. Ironman). Thus, the implicit message was that the most deeply principled Avengers said "No" to being controlled by anyone but themselves (just can't trust bureaucrats and their secret Hydra agendas!).



And it didn't take long for Thanos to arrive with an even more exigent exigency demanding that our heroes put the band back together and save Earth on their own terms. Sorry, United Nations, when half of sentient life in the universe is at stake, you just can't wait for approval of the security council. You save the universe by any means necessary and the U.N. can send you a thank you card later. MOVE! GET OUT THE WAY! LET THE HERO GO THROUGH!



And there is ALWAYS a crisis which justifies the instrumental use of force outside the parameters of law which justifies our vigilantes to go their own way. The ends justify the means and the uniquely powerful are the ones with the means. Let them make that omelet! Smash those eggs!



By the time we're at Infinity War and Endgame, they're not taking orders from anyone. They're doing their own thing. Sokovia Accords be damned, there are lives to be saved!



Sorry, I am continually getting into conversations I don't have time to reply to with the focus they deserve.

Fair enough. My suspicion is that you are far more subtle than most the of the viewing audience and that the actual function of the movie is at the surface and not in the depths.
Flattery will get you everywhere. But yeah, I'm probably looking for themes and subtext more than your random moviegoer, that's fair. But I think in this case it's just not particularly subtle.

I think that the Batman films are presenting us Batman as a hero. He does care. He does sacrifice. He does have lines he will not across (although he will "let die" if the baddie is a big enough pain in the rear, and he will temporarily spy on all of Gotham to catch Bane when circumstances are exigent). We are invited to identify with him. He is the good guy, especially compared with impotent or crooked cops and bureaucrats, and with the super-bads who torment the city. He submits himself to mortal dangers in deadly combat engaging in feats of skill and cunning. If he isn't being offered to us as a hero (with a few complications to justify all that sexy broodiness), who is?
Alfred is clearly the moral center of every Batman story. If he's calling Bruce out, they're basically telling the audience he's done something wrong, no plumbing of depths required.

Honestly, the thing this bit is quoting/replying to is kind of just what I want to say again: this is equating "hero" with "protagonist." Modern audiences, for all their flaws, are willing to accept (nay, sometimes seem to demand!) flawed protagonists. I think we're probably at an impasse if you see the things I'm describing as "a few complications," rather than central to the story being told, though.


I disagree. It does matter that only the barest minority of the human population might wield Thor's Hammer or find themselves wearing a power ring. The smaller the percentage the stronger the sign. If everyone could pick up Thor's Hammer, if Mulnir were a weapon of easy virtue, it would not be an accomplishment to wield it, would it? It would not be that might proves right, but that it is nice to have a toy. But this is NOT the deal. Almost NO ONE can pick up the hammer or wear the ring. Thus, that you can is a STRONG proof of your RARE super-virtues. That you are mighty proves you are right (i.e., you know you're the good guy, because you were selected to have the powers). So, on the contrary, not only do the percentages matter, they are central to my argument.
This is all fine as an explanation of your original claim, but we're a couple steps past that now and I honestly don't see how this addresses what I'm saying about directionality. You seem to just be describing the logic again, without addressing the only part I'm trying to talk about.

The argument by sign remains. That you are mighty is still a proof that you're right. It is not the Divine Command Theory of Violence (Might Directly Makes Right), but that your might is a STRONG SIGN that you are right (otherwise the universe would not have given you your magical powers).
Again, that's fine, because the rightness is shown as clearly being a prerequisite for the strength.


Sure, but that's not my point. My point is that we need to be careful with the casual fantasy self-justifications we take from these movies or we're more likely to be a villain who thinks himself a hero (those who are mighty are mighty for a reason, and therefore have a special mandate to act). The danger is stupidly convincing yourself that YOU are Superman or a Green Lantern or "the Greatest Generation" or that your nation should be "the policeman of the world", etc.
If you're just saying there are pitfalls to these kinds of stories, then yeah, I'd agree with that.

Am I misreading you? You seem to somewhat weaken your own point at the end. I'm tired, maybe I missed it. But superhero movies aren't much on subtlety and will not present the nuances and the banality of evil. The audience will not "see" the evil in the real world unless they go nuclear (e.g., everyone's a Nazi that I don't like). I probably missed your point here.
I think the disconnect is that these films are actually subtler on this point than you seem to think, so when I describe the dangers of simplistic depictions of good and evil you think I'm undercutting my point, whereas I think I'm making one.

When you say "comic book movies" I feel like notions of ideal from actual, literal comic books, from decades ago, are being smuggled into this. But the MCU has exploded not because it's brought that simplistic morality play stuff to the big screen with CGI, but because it's "updated" it for the modern moviegoer and made it feel lived in, and catered to the "savvier" consumer who expects the bad guys to sometimes have a point (but taken too far) and expects the good guys to sometimes screw up or even be outright wrong.

Comic book movies have taken a lot of things from comic books, but they haven't really taken the black-and-white morality stuff.

In this case, it's not a question of flow, but the wiring of the circuit. My circuit of argument by sign which show/demonstrates that the "hero" is justified because they are mighty. At the end of the day, if you can pick up the Hammer, then YOU are righteous. That is, if you still have you're might, you're still right. That's dangerous.
I'm not really sure how to keep talking about this, since I'm saying the direction/flow of that logic is what matters and you're just saying it isn't, I think?

Sure, that's the official story, that's the fig-leaf for all the violence. But let's be honest, at the end of the day we just want to feel good about watching cool people kick-ass and we don't want a big guilt trip or life-transformation out of it (i.e., it IS a Twinkie and not high French Cuisine), and the "pure of heart" tag is just enough to serve as a cardboard justification for all the violence, threatening, and coercing. But the EZ-Mac message also indicates another message (the argument by sign).
I think that's what we want initially, but as we grow up we realize it's boring and we stop caring about it, unless someone can come along and add something approximating real-world/adult nuance to it to make it intriguing again. And I think that's basically what's happening, and explains why the Federal Reserve would probably call Kevin Feige if it needed to borrow money.

Freezer, eh? Don't know that one, however, I will say that Hostess Cupcakes ain't bad out of the freezer.
Yeah, same idea I think. Basically anything like that, because none of it freezes but the cream gets nice and cold and the cake doesn't.

Thanks for the convo.
Likewise.



I go to the theater when I want to go to the theater.
If anything, the failure of DC to produce any movies I wanted to see (despite being a comic-book fan), the precipitous drop-off of quality in Marvel films, not to mention the pitiful state of the Star Wars franchise, has allowed me more opportunities to go to the theater to see things like Memoria.
And honestly, if half the country wants to drag themselves to the theaters to see blockbusters that are barely (and often not even) competent films, it just means the theater-system won't die out and I'll be able to get tickets to good movies on short-notice since most people will be in the bad ones.
I got to see Memoria in a cinema too. Incredible experience.



This is all fine as an explanation of your original claim, but we're a couple steps past that now and I honestly don't see how this addresses what I'm saying about directionality. You seem to just be describing the logic again, without addressing the only part I'm trying to talk about.

This appears to be a sticking point, so I suppose we should unpack this. In what way should my argument here be more responsive to yours? What do you feel I have missed in my response such that you feel your point is unanswered?



This appears to be a sticking point, so I suppose we should unpack this. In what way should my argument here be more responsive to yours? What do you feel I have missed in my response such that you feel your point is unanswered?
I think we must be talking past each other, but briefly (because as I mentioned earlier, I keep getting into discussions I can't really do justice to): I'm saying that which thing comes first (might/right) is a crucial component of the message being sent. I don't see why it's immaterial whether the causality is flowing in one way rather than another.

I follow that you're saying the audience is going to think they correlate, but I don't think that really changes the fact that they're being taught that virtue is the prerequisite for strength. I don't think we need to posit a particularly thoughtful or analytical audience to keep up with this.

Fair warning I might just have to bail so last word is probably yours unless you want me to reply in detail to something you feel I've missed, though.



I don't actually wear pants.
PS: Um, Dead Stiffy, could you please learn proper typing formate? I feel like you're trying to drown me or make my computer crash. I don't have enough RAM in my brain or my computer to process your giant river of text.