• Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This video is dumb. It’s making contradictory criticisms while having no alternative of its own to suggest.

      The heroes don’t use their powers to radically alter the world because, first and foremost, then it wouldn’t be our world, it would be a very different one. Once you actually apply all the innovations that should be possible, the setting starts looking more like Star Trek, and it becomes a very different story. This is the same reason that Batman will never keep his villains off the street, whether he captures them or kills them. It’s the same reason the Doctor always makes his way back to current year earth somewhere in the UK. The status quo they are maintaining is the one that let’s us continue telling this kind of story.


      Second, things like time travel and reality altering magic, things which can fundamentally change our world in an instant have to be kept limited, or we have no more stories. This goes beyond just the status quo of the setting and gets into the basics of storytelling and having tension. Make your heroes too powerful with no limitations, and you can’t maintain a conflict without gigantic plotholes.

      Second and a half, fundamentally altering the world with time travel or super science or magic is a concept that should be terrifying in its implications. Maybe time travel could alter the timeline for the better, but who gets to decide what is better, and what trade offs are worth it? Who gets to decide that it’s worth unmaking millions of lives to alter history into something you think might be better? And how many ways can it go wrong? The world is a complicated place, you can’t make sudden drastic changes without inflicting a lot of harm, even if you think the good it does will outweigh the harm. And doing so with forces that we may not fully understand or control is reckless. I mean, fuck, Ultron is the example they give of something to change the world, and would you trust the people making AI today to put that in a self-aware army of iron man robots?


      Third, what kind of message would it send if the heroes used some bullshit super science or magic solution that quickly and easily solved environmental issues or social problems? Is that really addressing the issues in a way that’s helpful for us in the real world? Is it setting an example for us to follow when they aren’t faced with any of the real difficulties that come with solving those problems? it seems like that would just be dismissing the problem and implicitly endorsing the kind of vaporware solutions that polluting industries often try to hype up to avoid real change.


      Fourth, do you really think the world would end up better if a small group of super powered individuals tried to overthrow governments, destabilize economies, and transform civilization by force? We’re not just talking about intervening in a specific conflict like Ukraine or Palestine here, the video makes that clear. If at the end of the day, they aren’t radically altering society, they are just defending the status quo. But, how do you think that would actually play out, especially in a world where there are other super powered individuals who will oppose them? World domination by benevolent dictators imposing their will on society while tearing the current order down by force is not going to be pretty, it’s going to be a fucking nightmare. And let’s be honest, none of our heroes have shown the capacity for building back the world they would be destroying, which is the much harder part.

      Well, actually, no, despite criticizing the heroes for not using their powers to single-handedly institute radical change the video goes on to argue that change would actually require larger movements lead by the public, and condemns the idea of an elite few hogging power (should iron man be flooding the streets with military hardware? And how the fuck is the hulk suppose to share his power?). So, what then is the right thing for them to do? I guess they should engage in peaceful activism and support the people when they aren’t called away to stop some murdering asshole from killing a bunch of innocent people. So, basically what we have now, but with a few more scenes of them making political statements and doing volunteer work that doesn’t actually contribute to the plot.


      Fifth, the villains are sometimes given sympathetic motivations because we want some nuance and complexity. The world is complicated and most conflicts are not just black and white. The lesson isn’t that change is bad and evil, it’s that you can’t just view the world in such simplified terms. The alternative of making the villains all bad and the heroes all good is actually far more dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that we can just see the world in simple us vs them terms, with no need to understand other points of view or to question our own.


      Sixth, they do fight the status quo, just not the parts that the video wants to address. Daredevil can’t solve all the world’s problems but he can and does fight both organized crime and corruption. Captain America isn’t going to overthrow the government, but he will fight SHIELD when it crosses the line. Iron Man changed his own company to address its role in the world, and uses it to innovate to make the world a better place, that’s just not the focus of the story.

    • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
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      1 year ago

      Oh no! People enjoying something you don’t! It’s a travesty, and must be stopped!

        • SuiXi3D@fedia.io
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          1 year ago

          And I’m sorry you have to worsen your life by doing so. It’s not healthy to be so negative.

          • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            I can guarantee virtually zero negative repercussions by holding this opinion. On the other hand, it seems to have really affected you and others.

            • Zorque@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It must really bug you to see so many people being happy while you stay depressed and despondent.

              • hydroptic@sopuli.xyzOP
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                1 year ago

                They’re “depressed and despondent” because they judge comic movie fans? This is some prime Dr. Phil level psychology right here.

                • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Internet troll criticizes comic book fans with chart pointing out that women prefer comic book fans to internet trolls by a 3 to 1 margin.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Can you name one superhero movie that follows the plot of the OP comic?

      The closest I can think of is Thanos killing half the people in the universe and the heroes trying to stop him. You’re on Thanos’s side?

      • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        I don’t watch them, because I don’t enjoy Disney spoonfeeding me low effort, regurgitated swill on the quarterly.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          So you… object to the idea of what you think the movies are like, to the point that you have no idea what they’re like?

          … And that sounds reasonable to you?

        • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The bad guy in black panther had a point, but was also a fascist trying to start a race war. And in the end, the hero acknowledges the issues that the villain had raised and does make changes to address them.

          • marcos@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            “We should intervene in misbehaving countries” vs. “we must respect other countries sovereignty” is never such an easy decision as the cartoon puts it.

            In the end of Black Panther, Wakanda becomes an imperialistic power.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah they are just not good. Same as star wars. I would maybe except the first Iron Man, Logan, and the original trilogy (before Lucas remade them with CGI).

      The story telling is lazy, the characters undifferentiated, and there are no real consequences to anything. It’s just obvious money grabbing because media consumers have no taste or ability to distinguish good art from bad. T

    • rowrowrowyourboat@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      No, it’s not at all. This is total nonsense. If anything, superheroes are usually persecuted by the government.

      Spider-Man specifically is literally an outlaw.

      And look at the X-Men. Half the time the gov wants to wipe mutants out.

      Maybe you can say that about Captain America, but he was created to defeat the Nazis. So yeah, who the fuck is not on the government side in this situation?

      And when the gov became corrupt, Captain America became an outlaw.

      So whoever is upvoting this and whoever created this doesn’t know much about Marvel or comics.

      I mean I don’t know that much, but I know the bare minimum to know this is nonsense.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The closest Marvel has to that position is Iron Man. But he still does his own thing, not the government bidding.

      • ninjabard@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s a major driving force in Civil War even the watered down version in the MCU.

        Tony Stark: I don’t have powers but made something that almost wiped out a nation so we should all register with the government that really hasn’t liked us all that much.

        Captain America: That’s a massive invasion of privacy and I fought against those who catalogued people, so get bent.