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Can we talk about how good Puss in Boots: The last wish is? It is culture war topic because unlike big projects from Disney, Marvel, Amazon and generally speaking Hollywood that underperformed (or flopped if you are into schadenfreude) it came out of nowhere, the reviews are off the scale and the movie itself is unapologetically culture war free. Simple story, tight writing, tight movie - there is barely anything to cut. Relatable and sympathetic characters you care about. Surprising depth and darkness for the more mature audience. A villain that is for the ages. Brilliant voice acting.
The message is about friendship family and trust - shave the heads of every male in the movie and it could be part from the Fast and Furious franchise.
It was a pleasant surprise and a datapoint for the theory that much of the DEI in Hollywood is defensive - to deflect criticisms.
Can something be a culture topic war topic by being culture war free?
I agree that there's a lack of quality in modern film and TV. A family member recently bought Marvel's second Doctor Strange movie, Multiverse of Madness. We watched it and were pretty confused. I hadn't seen any of them since Strange's first movie which we only saw because said relative likes Benedict Cumberbatch. It was staggeringly badly written, even allowing for the fact that it was alluding to events in movies I hadn't seen.
At one point they introduce Reed Richards in another universe, who was announced as the smartest man on their planet, a board member of the Illuminati that led the planet from the shadows. When faced with a life or death battle against an extremely powerful sorceress, he tries to talk her down in person after she annihilates about a brigade of their combat robots! What kind of retard would do that when he's only got the power to be really stretchy? Can't he talk to her via telecommunications or something? Call in an airstrike or use some kind of standoff attack? Research her capabilities and find a counter? Or perhaps coordinate the other combatants so they deal with her in a coordinated way rather than being defeated in detail, one by one?
In addition to throwing his life away, he manages to lose the battle for them. He tells Scarlet Witch 'oh you should surrender since we have this really powerful guy here right in front of you who can kill you if he opens his mouth'. So naturally she melts his lips together so he can't, before killing them all. If you've got a trump card like that, use it! Don't declare it and let it be countered!
I suppose 100 IQ writers can't write 200 IQ characters. Even so, they could make an effort. I was also unimpressed with the hamfistedness of introducing a girl named America Chavez, raised on some idyllic true-communist world by two mothers and no understanding of property. After all the supposedly powerful and skilled combatants manage to lose, she saves the day.
Even if the main attraction of these movies is the pretty lightshow battles, can't they also make a coherent plot with characters who make intelligent decisions?
IMO the problem isn't so much that the writers aren't smart enough, it's that they aren't trying. They've already decided that the plot needs to go a particular way, so they write characters' actions to make the plot go that way. If characters took initiative, they would derail the plot, so they must not be allowed to be too clever.
They could at least think about it for 5 minutes. If they need Scarlet Witch to beat up the Illuminati, there are ways to do that and make them not look like morons. Reed could try using a hologram or something to negotiate with the sorceress, only for her to use some kind of sympathetic magic that can hurt him through the connection. Maybe his plan was to distract her with a facsmile while bringing in powerful reinforcements, maybe he'd have a plan at all. His whole thing is using technology, using his intellect! Not just turning into a stretchy corpse because he showed up in person to a fight way beyond his energy-level.
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Obviously. It's not enough to not be racist, you have to be actively anti-racist.
If you make a good story that's not promoting anti-racism and DEI, you're taking people attention away from DEI media that do promote social change.
You are, therefore, an enemy.
Everything has to be political, if you make good things that aren't, you're weakening the cause.
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Yes. Take Avatar 2: The way of water, for example. It features a stern but loving father. His tough love is not without flaws and is criticised by the mother in the movie, but it isn't completely deconstructed and its value is clearly demonstrated. It also features the fearsome rage of a mother when her children are threatened and shows how this, too, can go too far.
In stark contrast to other contemporary films, the heroines are more than just narcissistic men with long hair and a massive chip on their shoulder. The power of the main heroine that is featured on the posters, for example, is - empathy. With Gaia that is. It also does not feature the trope that all contemporary Disney movies are contractually obligated to feature: "You can't do the thing, you're a girl!!!" "Oh yeah? Watch me do the thing better than you! Girrrrrrrrrrlpower! #feminism"
The characters have quite a bit of depth. Each with interesting motivations and flaws. This allows for quite a bit of satisfying character development.
So of course the film is lambasted as having a boring, safe storyline that doesn't take any chances.
I know, that tendency is grating. I remember watching season 2 of the boys where they actually made fun of the whole obligated feminism thing. In universe, they were filming what was basically a Justice League Movie with all their superheroes working together. Their not-Wonder Woman was given the line 'Girls get it done!' at one point and it's so obviously stilted and fake. Outside the context of that film, we the audience know she's in an incredibly vulnerable position with regard to Homelander, the vaguely psychopathic not-Superman who's weirdly possessive of her.
But then we get to the last episode of the season. The unpowered male characters and 2 powered women are working together to kill Stormfront, this Nazi super with the powers of manipulating lightning, flight and healing very quickly. The men decide to rig up a bunch of RPGs hoping to get around her healing factor. That doesn't actually work but at least they tried to make a plan.
The women decide to charge right in and hit her really hard! They start losing, only to be saved by a third powered woman who then joins in on their strategy of kicking Stormfront on the ground. Eventually one of the unpowered males says 'I guess girls really do get it done'.
Two supposedly well trained superheroines don't try to grapple her or anything to stop her flying away. Nobody bothered to bring so much as a sword to decapitate. They don't even try to rip her head off with their bare hands (something the show would love given how gory it already is). They just punch and kick. So eventually Stormfront gets up, flies away and they can't follow. They've decisively lost the battle since she could heal in a few hours, come back and hunt them down piecemeal.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SgAEexDFhV8
Everyone in the comments is saying 'oh this is such a good cringe-free example of girlpower' but they completely failed in their objective, solely due to their incompetence. Unlike the men, they had the raw power to win head-on but squandered it by failing to use any tactics at all. Even if you can't grapple someone with lightning powers, at least try? Bring rubber gloves (hey maybe they could dig out some 1970s style skintight suit and justify its usefulness)? Or a big hammer, something to get some mechanical advantage? Or if swords are too metallic, get an obsidian or glass blade?
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To be fair, the original was also lambasted for following a literal Disney plot. Not exactly subversive storytelling. Though I do expect recreating Pocahontas would see different sorts of criticism today.
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"Can something be a culture war topic by being culture war free?"
This reminds me of the notion of "radical centrist." It sounds oxymoronic but makes sense when a significant number of people move away from centrism such that centrism inches closer to an offensive abnormality.
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That's not culture war free....
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This is a common problem IMO.
See also Eliezer's Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters.
That essay breaks off in the middle of a sentence! Did he ever get around to finishing it?
They're links to sub-articles.
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I think this is a get out of free card for the writers. here is a video from Brandon Sanderson on how he writes characters smarter than him: https://youtube.com/watch?v=YyaC7NmPsc0
His point boils down to a big part of smart characters is there ability to make difficult decisions well, quickly. But as the writer you can take all the time in the world to come up with the best action, allowing the writer to write characters much smarter than himself/herself.
He does have the advantage of writing fantasy, where the toolset can be absurd, even when the mental tricks are more reasonable. Combine that with Sanderson’s Three Laws of Magic and you get reasonable insurance against Doylist excess.
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You can Watosnianly blame most of that on the source material (solo series began publishing 2016, so that particular CW era of Marvel) of course Doylists would ask why that source material was chosen to be included in the first place. Of all the movies to include her, one involving the multiverse does make some sense.
To be honest, I find that vignette hilarious out of context. It’s like an SMBC punchline, but missing some philosophical setup.
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Apparently the first three phases of the MCU were all part of the Infinity Saga, which is ultimately about Thanos and the infinity stones. The next three phases are all about the Multiverse, so I assume those who actually watch these films will be seeing a lot more of Chavez.
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