LogFAQs > #900901133

CoolCly posted...

the thing about no fun is that he takes the position of these "these movies are not intelligent and follow very predictable patterns that I can easily see coming because I'm so much smarter than the movie" but the things he actually says about the movie don't really make any sense. Like he actually can't understand that these are characters within the movie with limited perspective, and seems really perplexed when they don't do exactly what he thinks the right move is. They make decisions that aren't perfectly efficient and think that's somehow a detriment to the film. It's like he doesn't know he's watching a movie.

so that's pretty neat

I doubt very much that this is worth responding to anymore, but I'll bite.

The way I see it, there are two ways of evaluating movies: objectively and subjectively. Now, obviously trying to judge anything like this objectively is a load of bullshit and not worth anybody's time. You're jumping to an erroneous conclusion when looking at my points. When I say "Marvel movies are not intelligent and follow very predictable patterns", I'm don't then say, or mean to imply, that "[only] I can easily see coming because I'm so much smarter than the movie [or moviegoers]", but "and I think this is a bad thing". Everybody looks to different things in judging any piece of media. I prefer subtlety or well-foreshadowed twists or something that is generally more cerebrally than viscerally engaging (this sounds pretentious as fuck but I'm too lazy to change it, but I stand by it. One of my favorite movies is 12 Angry Men, aka 90 minutes of arguing. Ask scarlet for more a more detailed breakdown). Other people like action or tragic deaths or heroism in the face of adversity, and that's fine. You're just essentially getting up-in-arms about how I don't affix "in my opinion" to every one of my statements about the quality of Marvel movies in general. Some people like these movies. They aren't wrong. I don't. I'm not wrong either. I perhaps don't need to go into topics and voice my opinions, but if challenged, I'm always willing to earnestly elucidate why.

Next. The characters don't have perfect foresight. They're human. That's fine. Humans can also be dumb and make mistakes and be lambasted over those mistakes. If those mistakes are so severe as to break the suspension of disbelief or to get people angry about them, it's bad storytelling. I never said every questionable decision every character made was terrible. Both Loki and Gamora gave up their stones in the face of torture of a friend (though why didn't Gamora know about the sacrifice despite her sister knowing?), and I think that's reasonable. Strange did too, but he had ulterior motives. Notice how I focused on 3 situations to complain about instead of nitpicking every scene.

Scarlett is different. Her entire arc had revolved around protecting Vision and his stone. Everything she had done since two minutes after her introduction was to serve that end, and even before then, she was having a conversation about never leaving Vision which was brought up multiple times later. Her having the impulse to run off and fight is understandable and fair, but she ultimately did so to progress the plot. There were so many other things she could've done to avoid that mistake, a mistake that should have been clear to her even in her limited perspective, but it still happened, completely needlessly.

I don't need characters to act perfectly efficiently. I just want them to think about their actions to any degree at all, to at least consider the clear and obvious consequences. Like, calling in one of those mercenary criminal guys. They might've gotten their ass kicked by the miniboss, and it would've been a mistake, but a mistake that makes sense in context, rather than obnoxious, abject idiocy.
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Thus is our treaty written, thus is our agreement made. Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades. What was asked is given; the price is paid.
ARF