Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
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Whether you’re an MCU nut like me, or a Pixar nut, there’s actually a lot more on Disney+ than what you subscribed for. For me, one of them is Brain Games care of National Geographic.
Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris in season one, Jason Silva in seasons 2 through 7, and Keegan-Michael Key since, this show dives into how our brains work. Many of you are certainly aware of a lot of the oddities of how the brain works, but even in episodes where I knew the tricks, I was still sometimes fooled, and in any event there was still a lot to learn. Brain Games goes into detail as to how and why the brain does what it does. Each episode so far has been just over 20 minutes, and none of them depend on the other, so it’s easy to fit into your schedule.
If you’re into science, or just like getting fooled, give Brain Games a shot.
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Battle: Los Angeles just returned to Netflix. Rotten Tomatoes reports a score of 36 from the film critics (who mean nothing to me) and 48 from the audience. That means, to the population at large, it sucks. I don’t care. I love the science fiction aspect to it, and surprisingly I like that no explanations are given. Instead, the story is completely about the humans. It’s not just that they win the fight; their relationships and self-determination are in the forefront. I’m a huge Star Trek: Original Series fan precisely because it was never really about the bells and whistles of the setting, but was instead a morality play at heart. It was 20th-century humanity living in the 23rd century. Similarly, BLA is about the humans, not the alien invaders.
In yesterday’s post, I voiced my only serious complaint about the MCU: The incoherent power curve. While that certainly annoys me, Avengers: Age of Ultron keeps me from forgetting that the least powerful original Avengers, Black Widow and Hawkeye, were certainly very important to the team. If the choice I was given was having a screwy power curve or eliminating them from the story, I’ll take the screwy power curve with a smile on my face every time.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye was instrumental in stopping Scarlet Witch from tearing the Avengers apart. He was the only one who avoided her powers, and he was the one to convince her, the person that would one day become the strongest Avenger, to join the team in a meaningful way. That was done with a speech rivaling any Captain America ever delivered. This was a believable effort on his part despite not requiring a superpower. Before that, however, he reinforced the message to the other Avengers of what they were fighting for by introducing them to his family. In fact, his non-hero wife, Laura, kept him from losing touch with his own importance. For a team that was falling apart at the seams, this was critical to the believability of the Avengers continuing to work well together.
Black Widow
I’ve written several times about how Black Widow is the glue of the Avengers. Except for Thor, she had significant, on-screen bonding moments with each of the original Avengers (as well as a few others) over the course of several films. This could explain her eventual inability to stick to one side in the Avengers’ “civil war.” With this movie, we saw the development of her most significant relationship, Bruce Banner, and the expansion of her most important one (from a story perspective), Hawkeye. I vaguely relate to Black Widow’s backstory, and how it shaped who she became, in a specific but personal way I won’t discuss; however, I think we can all agree that it’s compelling enough for her own movie. The story became a mission to rescue her, but not really. Far from the archetypical damsel in distress, she instead turned the situation around from the inside, leading the Avengers to Ultron. Without screwing with the power curve, Black Widow contributed in vital ways.
These two characters were as important to the Avengers as any of the others, and neither had a superpower.
Unrelated Note
In a cinematic universe filled with brilliant one-liners, one of my favorites comes from Age of Ultron.
I’m not sure if Natasha and Clint’s friendship is the best thing about the #MCU, but it’s *really* close. Only Steve and Bucky’s rival it. #QuarantineWatchParty#AvengersEndgame
There’s one thing that the MCU does consistently that I don’t like: They screw up the power curve.
I understand that writing something so grand in scale as the 22 MCU films was tough, but I think they could do a lot better of a job in this regard. First, we can start by saying that the characters don’t have to be precisely matched up. Captain America has super serum coursing through his veins, so there’s no way Black Widow should be a match for the enemies that are a match for Captain America. Sorry, Rex, but karate, kung fu, etc. just don’t work that way. Nevertheless, if the two of them are facing off against the same enemies, I can accept that. Along the power curve, they’re certainly within a reasonable range of each other, and sometimes someone’s specific weaknesses can fall prey to their adversary’s specific strengths.
But no matter how cool it looked, having Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon save Scarlet Witch and Vision makes no sense at all.
It did look cool though. Really cool.
At one point, Kevin Feige said that Captain Marvel was the most powerful MCU hero. Then he changed his tune, saying Scarlet Witch was. Either of these two choices makes sense (though Thor should be), as their powers come from Infinity Stones. Similarly, Vision’s power comes from an Infinity Stone, so Scarlet Witch and Vision are cosmic level beings like Thor, the dark elves, and Thanos and his adoptive children. That last group took out an entire ship of “gods” (Asgardians) including Thor, Heimdall, Loki, and Hulk. Thanos won a fist fight against the Hulk, who’s probably the only terrestrial hero that we should expect to deal with cosmic threats. Should Hawkeye have been used to save the Asgardians?
I refuse to believe that this is hard to write; I suspect they just don’t want to write it any other way. It’s fan service, but that’s why I don’t care much for it. There’s literally only one hero for which I have a bias: Thor. That’s not based on comics, which I’ve rarely read, but rather my love of mythology. I don’t need Captain America to win a fist fight against Proxima Midnight, because my love for the character doesn’t go back any further than the start of the MCU. I’d much rather see him take on threats that make sense for him, and there were certainly several present during the battle of Wakanda. If Captain is a match for Proxima, then Proxima shouldn’t be in the same ballpark as Thor. If she’s presented as such, then Thor is no tougher than the toughest human (yet can somehow take on the brunt of a neutron star). Again, this makes no sense at all.
Obviously, I’m insanely fond of the MCU, and this doesn’t bother me too much, but I’m no apologist. If the MCU is screwing up, I’ll call it out. This is, in my opinion, their one consistent screw up. They have the chance to readjust their thinking with the introduction of new characters for future phases, but I’m not optimistic they will. However, as I’ll discuss tomorrow, I’ll gladly tolerate an incoherent power curve if it gives us the two critical characters that most often screwed with it.
I suspect the majority of you just want to see your favorite guy punch the bad guy. Fair enough.
I finished Penny Dreadful on Netflix last week. I wasn’t thrilled with seasons 2 and 3 in general, but that said, I didn’t like how it ended. I wonder if writers don’t know how to finish TV shows, or if we, as humans, are just impossible to please in that regard.
In the rare instance where I enjoy how a show ends, it’s almost always comedy. Hell, Parks and Recreation ended perfectly . . . twice! My sense is that comedies are more satisfying because the writers always go for a 100% feel-good ending where everything gets wrapped up happily. On the other hand, for a serious drama to work, it must often push some buttons throughout the series. When the wrong button is pushed in a finale, there’s no undoing it or making up for it. We’re all just left to feel unsatisfied. Even the Shield, which I felt ended well, still left me feeling at bit off only because there were a couple of things I didn’t like. They still stick in my craw a bit. For shows that don’t end so well, that effect is magnified.
For the record, Halt and Catch Fire is a drama that ended perfectly. The series produced its ups and downs by having the characters engage in destructive behavior that drove each other apart, yet somehow always brought them back together again. It ended with several of the characters having drifted apart, but because of that groundwork they laid over the course of the show, you come away feeling like they’re going to find their way back to one another again. This allowed them to “move on” and have a resolution very different than that of their friends while still facilitating a “feel good” ending.
So no, it’s not impossible, but it seems to be very difficult. I should probably take a screenwriting class so I can understand this process better, but this is how I interpret what I’ve heard from others and what I feel myself.
It’s rare that I find things that I don’t like about the MCU, but there are a few. As I discussed yesterday, I approved of “Fat Thor” because it was handled fairly well. However, it wasn’t handled perfectly; to-wit: War Machine. I felt that the writers unnecessarily threw Rhodey under the bus. They gave him all the mean-spirited lines, and a couple were particularly bad. This reminds me of my tweet during the Infinity War watch party.
The writers didn't have to throw Peter under the bus on this, but they did. Peter's the root cause of the other 14,000,604 outcomes. #QuarantineWatchParty#InfinityWar#MCU#GotG
If it weren’t for Peter’s completely irrational reaction, none of the 14,000,605 alternate timelines would have occurred (including the successful one). People do stupid things for one of four reasons that I can identify: 1) They’re stupid; 2) they’re kidding; 3.) they’re trolling you; or 4.) they’re acting emotional, thus abandoning all logic. Regardless of which category you think Peter is in, he behaved stupidly, and I don’t see why the writers had to do that. They could easily have made Thanos too strong for Mantis. Unfortunately, this seems to be how they write. They want a clear scapegoat among the heroes, being someone that consistently goes in a bad direction.
Rhodey
Rhodey didn’t cause Thanos’s arrival in Endgame. His issues were different; he was simply an asshole. First, let’s look at the discussion of the Infinity Stones.
Everyone’s comments and facial expressions seem to show concern for Thor, except Scott Lang, who as always is lost and therefore not sure if Thor is kidding. He may have just been giving Thor encouragement. In any case, all of these people are goodhearted in their approach. The exception is Rhodey, who makes a joke of it with, “No, I’m pretty sure he’s dead,” and arguably Clint’s facial expression when Rhodey and he share a knowing look with each other. Then we go to the discussion of time travel.
As if designed to make sure Rhodey looked as bad as possible, they left it to him to say that time travel should have been used to kill Thanos as a baby. Everyone would have forgiven that (after all, “It’s Thanos!”), but it still had a mean feel to it, and it became yet another straw on the camel’s back (so to speak).
Then consider his scene with Nebula.
Rhodey’s question, “So he’s an idiot?” came across as rhetorical. He was clearly calling Peter an idiot with an air of frustration. Nebula’s simple response of, “Yeah,” came only after a pause and a downward glance. Of all people to be reluctant to insult someone, Nebula seemed exactly that. Here were two characters saying the same exact thing about the same exact person, yet they were coming from opposite directions. Nebula’s remarkable story arc of redemption certainly colored how I viewed all of her statements, and that’s probably true for Rhodey based on the above, who seemed to be going in the opposite direction. But that’s what I’m talking about. That’s a direct result of the writing.
Moving on, remember from yesterday’s post, once it was explicitly established that Thor’s physical condition was tied to the depression and/or PTSD, the fat jokes stopped coming, except for Rhodey. He continued to insult Thor’s condition, and it didn’t come across as playful.
Objectively, “Cheez Whiz” is a funny line, but it was done not only after we learned why Thor was in a depleted physical state, but also at the exact moment Thor was having an emotional crisis. Thor was going to sacrifice himself to atone for his perceived sin of failure, which itself resulted in depression, PTSD, and his physical condition.
I’m the kind of guy that thinks no topic is forbidden from comedy. Anything can be funny if done well. The only sin in comedy is not being funny, and I’m never offended, even if my own insecurities are the butt of the joke. I far prefer laughing at myself than wallowing in self-pity, so I believe making fun of people can be funny. But it also can be not funny. With Rhodey, it came across as mean-spirited and was completely unnecessary.
The totality of just these few scenes left me with a bad impression.
Who’s to Blame?
The blame can lie with any combination of the actor, director, and screenwriter. I don’t know who to blame, but you can see from the deleted scenes in that last clip that this was exactly what they were going for. They wanted to say something mean-spirited, and the fact that Peter Quill was thrown under the bus in Infinity War suggests that the writing is to blame. In total, I felt it debased the character. Unfortunately, I don’t see much room for him to redeem himself. I haven’t heard any mention of his return to the MCU on the big screen or on Disney+.
Have you learned to dislike Rhodey? Is there a value to these lines that I don’t appreciate?
I’m not a psychologist, but I don’t have to be for the sake of this post, and neither do you. The only expertise we need for this post is to diagnose Thor as having depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”), or both. Because he’s a make-believe character, what that really means is that we have to infer whether that’s what the writers intended when writing for the character. If you’re one of the few that don’t infer that, then this post isn’t for you. I’m operating from the assumption that Thor’s physical condition is the result of one or both of those mental/emotional conditions (perhaps another that’s more appropriate), and so I will certainly not be arguing that assumption here.
Thor’s physical condition clearly sprang from his mental illness. Was that a good thing? I believe it was, both for script purposes and for real world purposes.
Script
What started in Thor: Ragnarok came to fruition in Avengers: Infinity War: Thor is the strongest Avenger. With only one exception, Thor never took a legitimate blow from the Hulk, getting hit only when he was trying to stop the fight or when the Grandmaster cheated. He developed what was probably the Thorforce from the comics, and with both Odin and Hela dead, that makes sense. He took on the brunt of a neutron star. He almost took out Thanos while Thanos was wielding all six Infinity Stones. The Russos came up with a lame excuse (Thanos was taken by surprise), but if Thor had just gone for the head . . . .
So, if Thor is that powerful, what happens in Endgame? Most likely, the battle lasts about 15 seconds with Thor saving the world. That’s not particularly dramatic. His weakness was necessary to give Thanos a fighting chance and to give us the grand finale we all wanted.
Real World
All that said, the only reason this plot device worked is because Thor was deemed worthy. Depression and PTSD are illnesses. Having them doesn’t necessarily make you a weak person, though they do give you certain vulnerabilities. Mjolnir gives us an objective standard to tell us whether or not someone is “worthy.” Thor’s ability to summon and wield Mjolnir tells us that his condition and value as a hero aren’t connected. It tells us that our own conditions and values as human beings aren’t connected. For this reason, I not only think Fat Thor was nothing worth being offended about, but was actually very important.
Moreover, once it was explicitly established that Thor’s physical condition was tied to the depression and/or PTSD, the jokes stopped coming, or at least shifted focus. “Lebowski” wasn’t a comment about weight. Endgame wasn’t perfect, though. For some inexplicable reason, Rhodey continued to insult Thor, and it didn’t come across as playful. I’ll discuss this in depth in tomorrow’s post.
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Last weekend was Extraction on Netflix. It’s almost non-stop action with a couple of actors I really like: Chris Hemsworth and David Harbour. I don’t recall a single other actor I recognized.
This was a frustrating movie. The “object” of the movie isn’t worth the collateral damage done on his behalf. No one deserves to be a pawn, but there comes a time where you have to say, “Enough.” However, it’s a movie, not real life. As I’ve noted before, we accept some (let’s call it) moral exaggeration for the sake of drama. Some members of the audience will miss the message unless they’re hit over the head with it, so we can forgive characters that we’d never forgive in the real world. All of that said, the movie doesn’t take the easy way out but somehow has a happy(ish) ending with a dose of (obscure) redemption for good measure. I’m not upset I watched it, but my life isn’t any richer having done so.
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I recently watched the 6-speisode season of Ragnarok on Netflix. In contrast to most of my geek brethren, I’m not fond of shows where the protagonists are kids. I’m not into Harry Potter, Ender’s Game, the Hunger Games, Stranger Things, and all the rest of them, but if you are, the fact that high school kids are saving us all won’t bother you. I also don’t like subtitles, and these were quite annoying. They were greatly overdone. For example, many times that a song was played, it unnecessarily identified the song by name and artist. However, I’m quite fond of is mythology, so that drew me in regardless of the inherent strikes against it.
Ragnarok was a way to pull my favorite mythological characters, the Norse gods and giants, into the real world, so I’m inclined to like it even if it isn’t the best show on television. It wasn’t like Troy (a movie I love) that tried to explain how the legends could have arisen from real-world, realistic events. No, this was about the supernatural; these characters used magic and had superhuman abilities. The show also used anthropogenic climate change as the battle ground between humans and the Jotnar (i.e., giants). Of course, the best part is when the reincarnated Thor is wearing a Washington Redskins shirt. #HttR 🙂 The fact that it’s only six, 40-minute (or so) episodes makes it an easy watch.
As you know, I love the MCU. Marvel Studios could have relied on the action and fantasy elements inherent to the source material to make a ton of money on crappy movies, but they didn’t. They spent a ton of money on special effects, but also on hiring highly talented writers, directors, and actors (some with Oscars under their belts) so that the movies had substance as well. No movie exemplifies that more than Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Like many MCU movies, it had the theme of establishing deep friendships that represented more than just coworkers or bar buddies. No, these friends were so close as to represent an adoptive family, replacing the biological families that Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, and Nick Fury lost, never knew, or never had. As wonderfully as it was executed, all of that is actually par for the course in the MCU. The Winter Soldier goes a step further.
Winter Soldier dealt with a political issue that is both timely and important: How do we strike the balance between security and liberty? Both are important. If we lax our security, we won’t have liberty for long, because nefarious forces from within and/or without will steal it. However, if security replaces liberty, then what kind of an existence are we actually fighting for? That’s why, when push comes to shove, liberty must win. In Winter Soldier, all of the good guys either fought for liberty or joined the fight after eventually realizing that they should have been all along. This decision shouldn’t be made naively, but those characters didn’t do that.
Okay, they sometimes did. The commitment to liberty was excessively idealistic, but this is a movie. Filmmakers must deal with extremes or risk losing the crowd. Many moviegoers aren’t observant enough to pick up key points being made unless they’re hit with it over the head, and a major theme is certainly a “key point.” This is why horrible characters that deserve the most serious punishment under the law can be forgiven and exalted by an audience simply because they’ve learned how to love a sibling. The movie world is different from the real world, and I’m sure you understand that. If not, movies must seem utterly ridiculous to you.
With that in mind, Winter Soldier dealt with an important and timely issue, came down on the right side of it (liberty) without being (too) naïve, and somehow managed to do that without pissing off members of any political party.
Play What You Want 