MCU/Superhero Discussion Thread

[Forsher]

You know, when someone tells me they love a film I didn't care for, I tend to assume they've noticed something I haven't or that they value something I don't. I don't assume they're lying about liking it.

Maybe the people who like BP aren't being pretentious. That is, they're not pretending to be cleverer than you. Maybe they're just...cleverer than you.

Your theory is compelling up until the point you mistake it for saying "people only like BP because it's pretentious". It doesn't say this. It says "the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality (because they're pretentious) so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable".

Not remotely the same thing.

I particularly love the bit where you try and pretend I claim people are "lying about liking" movies.

BP and Ragnarok both revolve around the arrival of an unknown claimant to the throne who intends to create an Empire. Both... as is typical in MCU films... are unknown due to the secret keeping behaviour of the main character's father-kings. Both films involve the main character being presumed dead and requiring a power-up. The biggest difference is that Thor puts his team together whereas T'Challa gets put together by Nakia!

Thematically they even copy each other... both are about colonialism (although Ragnarok is much more subtle... in part because Hela is just so aggressive).

Cool. That was every bit the stretch I thought it would be.

I'm sorry if you somehow think complete plot similarity =/= ripoff.

BP and Ragarnok are far more similar than Madagascar and The Wild.

I have no idea how one person can think that a fantasy comedy romp film in space with superheroes is the same as an Afrofuturist political action thriller with superheroes.

Maybe you should think about how they're similar. Instead of focussing on the presentation.

I don't even personally really see the colonialism in Ragnarok, Hela strikes me (and Asgard in general) as a person/nation who's more out to grab loot and territory than anything approximating actual governance of such. I mean, Vanaheim and Nidavallir are the only ones of the 9 Realms that actually show some form of positive relationship beyond 'Asgard is better than this place,' and only Jotunheim has that negative relationship that resembles something closer to what'd you expect if someone beat you in a bunch of wars and stole your crown jewels.

There are many, many articles about this.

Just because Black Panther focusses on something specific doesn't mean Ragnarok isn't about the same thing.

The biggest difference (tone aside) between the two (very, very Sci-Fi films) is that Killmonger wants to do the same thing as Hela for the opposite reason. To Killmonger the Wakandan Empire is necessary because it's a form of recompense whereas Hela wants to make an Asgardian Space Empire because it's dishonest to pretend it's anything else.

[Alvecia]

Sure, I just took that as something a bit closer to 'invade them and take their stuff repeatedly'

That would be rather space viking of them.

Asgardians? The Norse gods of myth? I think you're stretching a bit there /s

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

You know, when someone tells me they love a film I didn't care for, I tend to assume they've noticed something I haven't or that they value something I don't. I don't assume they're lying about liking it.

Maybe the people who like BP aren't being pretentious. That is, they're not pretending to be cleverer than you. Maybe they're just...cleverer than you.

Your theory is compelling up until the point you mistake it for saying "people only like BP because it's pretentious". It doesn't say this. It says "the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality (because they're pretentious) so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable".

Not remotely the same thing.

I particularly love the bit where you try and pretend I claim people are "lying about liking" movies.

...nope, I'm lost. I don't know if you understand what my point is, and now I'm not sure I understand yours. You think the Academy is pretentious but also that they genuinely like BP? You're going to have to expand on that, because those two ideas look pretty damn contradictory to me.

[Pasong Tirad]

I have no idea how one person can think that a fantasy comedy romp film in space with superheroes is the same as an Afrofuturist political action thriller with superheroes.

Maybe you should think about how they're similar. Instead of focussing on the presentation.

Lol what the hell is this even supposed to mean?

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

Maybe you should think about how they're similar. Instead of focussing on the presentation.

Lol what the hell is this even supposed to mean?

It means you need to go just deep enough to consider the plot beats (which are, admittedly, very similar), but not so deep that you consider the underlying themes (which are not*).

*As far as I can remember. I've only seen Ragnarok once.

[Forsher]

Your theory is compelling up until the point you mistake it for saying "people only like BP because it's pretentious". It doesn't say this. It says "the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality (because they're pretentious) so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable".

Not remotely the same thing.

I particularly love the bit where you try and pretend I claim people are "lying about liking" movies.

...nope, I'm lost. I don't know if you understand what my point is, and now I'm not sure I understand yours. You think the Academy is pretentious but also that they genuinely like BP? You're going to have to expand on that, because those two ideas look pretty damn contradictory to me.

Why do you assume that pretentious people can't genuinely like things? Why would you assume anyone thinks being pretentious means you can't like things? How does this even work?

[Forsher]

Maybe you should think about how they're similar. Instead of focussing on the presentation.

Lol what the hell is this even supposed to mean?

Let's say that we're trying to tell you that WWI was terrible, being a soldier in it sucked and basically it was a death trap. One way we could do this is to make a big drama film that's really dark, with lots of mud, huge explosions, lots of trauma and death, a main character leaves the film halfway through with a leg blown off, another bites it a third of the way in as a kind of decoy protagonist and then at the end of the movie we zoom out from the lifeless eyes of our main character. Oh and we'll probably gas a village in the opening sequence because why not... and take that Saving Private Ryan.

Another way we could do this exact same thing is Blackadder Goes Forth, which doesn't look or feel like this at all. But it's about exactly the same things.

The very bleak or "gritty" or even grimdark approach of the film proposed above is just presentation... a kind of wrapping put on the same object but which makes it appear very different until you unwrap it. BP and Ragnarok also use different settings (not that different) so you could say that we've bought, for sake of argument, Empire for John and Susan but we put John's copy in a big box and just wrapped the book for Susan... in addition to wrapping John's in wedding present colours and Susan's in Christmas paper. Bonus points for giving the presents at a Wedding and Christmas respectively.

But here's the best bit... John and Susan got married to each other, because if you're going to use a throw away example you might as well make it heteronormative, amirite?

We could even obfuscate the similarities even more (and confuse things by switching examples completely) by giving John a complete Madagascar films box-set and Susan Toy Story. Same plot (okay the third films are more different). Same themes. But no-one talks about them being the same thing because... they don't look like it. Different presentations. It would be best if I could give you two different war films with basically the same plot structure but set in very different wars because Madagascar and Toy Story are more different in setting than Ragnarok and BP are.*

*I've thought about it a bit and maybe Thin Red Line and Jarhead work here. Or if you did a cut of Blackadder to make it more about Melchett and compared War Machine (the Brad Pitt film).

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

...nope, I'm lost. I don't know if you understand what my point is, and now I'm not sure I understand yours. You think the Academy is pretentious but also that they genuinely like BP? You're going to have to expand on that, because those two ideas look pretty damn contradictory to me.

Why do you assume that pretentious people can't genuinely like things? Why would you assume anyone thinks being pretentious means you can't like things? How does this even work?

If someone says they admire something, and you say they're just being pretentious, then you are necessarily saying that they don't really see as much merit in it as they claim; they just think that praising this thing will make them look clever or refined or something like that. You can't be sincerely pretentious.

Unless you're saying they're usually pretentious, but on this occasion they're being sincere? In which case, why even bring it up? If you think the people who say BP genuinely believe it's a great movie, why are you throwing the word "pretentious" around? This is why I asked you to expand on what you meant, because I really don't understand what you're trying to say with this word.

Maybe we can clear this up: I liked Black Panther. As soon as the credits rolled, the person sitting next to me said "That was really boring" to which I replied "I thought it was the best one yet". I stand by that opinion. Am I being pretentious?

[Cannot think of a name]

Cool. That was every bit the stretch I thought it would be.

I'm sorry if you somehow think complete plot similarity =/= ripoff.

BP and Ragarnok are far more similar than Madagascar and The Wild.

Well, again I think you're being rather generous with your assessment, but whatever.

You're also completely not understanding the nature of narrative to make your faulty comparison a strike against the film. Or how movies are made. There's this delightful assumption that one is absolutely a rip off of the other and who is the villain is based on one coming out four months ahead of the other, which ignores the complexity of how films are made. Unless you're under the impression that Coogler looked at the success of Tahiti's Ragnarok in October and then made a massive special effects laden blockbuster starting in November so it could be released in February. It is a completely adorable view of how the film industry works.

Now, no doubt you're going to argue that since these are from the same studio and in fact the same shared universe that they are completely aware of each other during production and that is completely true of Fiege who oversees the production of all the films, but that also makes some wildly inaccurate assumptions of the nature of the industry or the freedoms and restrictions filmmakers like Tahiti and Coogler are given.

Not to mention you're not actually describing plot, something new screenwriters have a hard time dealing with, but rather similar elements. How the characters deal with those elements is the plot, and the two deal with them very differently with very different results and implications.

Finally, your fascination with novelty is a misguided 20th century obsession that has fuckall to do with the quality of a story. Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote many of the same stories. Hell, John Fletcher wrote a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew called A Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed. During Shakespeare's time to get Shakespeare's attention. You might want to go, "Well, how many people know that?" and my answer is, "People who like Jacobian theater do." The play was popular in its time.

Also, let's grant your flimsy premise of 'total ripoff', as comically applied as it is. Going back to Taming of the Shrew, the literal plot of that was the inspiration of 10 Things I Hate About You. West Side Story? Romeo and Juliet. Lion King? Plenty of similarities to Hamlet. You can't watch West Side Story and assume to have seen Romeo and Juliet and these are intentional and direct influences.

Then there's things like the heroes journey and other mythology (which it's important to remember that Thor is a legitimate mythological character playing out an adaptation of the actual mythology of Ragnarok, the end of times. You know, how the only way to stop Hela was to allow for the destruction of Asgard, tying to the theme that Thor was not the god of hammers, he was the god of Thunder. The hammer was a focus, not his identity. The physical place of Asgard was a symbol of Asgard, but Asgard was its people. Whereas Killmonger is the result of a dogmatic adherence to isolation and protectionism that had allowed suffering that Wakanda could have prevented.

The absolute strength of Black Panther, the thing that people are responding to, is that Killmonger is in his core premise is right. Wakanda's isolation has tacitly endorsed the suffering it could have prevented. If we're going to reach and claw for a 'rip off' then it bears more similarities with Spider-man than Ragnarok. In this case Wakanda is Parker, focusing on their own power and allowing their Uncle Ben, the rest of the African people, get shot and not doing anything. Only it taking centuries. When the both the villain and the hero are right, it becomes a more compelling story. Hela's not 'right', she's just mad like every other super villain.

If we're going to start calling 'rip off' about unknown claimants to the throne or a hero that has a hardship, a 'point of no return' at the end of the second act that they overcome it in the second, we're going to have to decide that most stories are just 'rip offs' of stories we've been telling for centuries at this point, as Ragnarok didn't invent the unknown claimant to the throne (Man in the Iron Mask, just off the top of my head), nor power struggles of the direction of the throne (Robin Hood?).

Frankly, you've fallen prey to a specific flavor of clickbaiting internet critique, that makes for five minute videos making mountains out of a few molehills of comparison, sort of a playschool version of critique that identifies elements and influences and places them in the context of the artform. It sure sounds good and makes for good clicks...it's how I make my living, so click away...but it's not the cut and dry thing you're trying to make it out to be. It's silly. You should stop and just enjoy your movies. Or not. But at least stop making these silly declaratives.

[Lord Dominator]

Hela wants to make an Asgardian Space Empire because it's dishonest to pretend it's anything else.

I'm really pretty sure she just likes conquering things.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Hela wants to make an Asgardian Space Empire because it's dishonest to pretend it's anything else.

I'm really pretty sure she just likes conquering things.

Making her a really good conqueror at the cost of terrible administrative-based ruler?

[Alvecia]

I'm really pretty sure she just likes conquering things.

Making her a really good conqueror at the cost of terrible administrative-based ruler?

That's the thing with most conquerors. They never really stop to think about the sheer amount of paperwork ruling an empire would incur.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

Making her a really good conqueror at the cost of terrible administrative-based ruler?

That's the thing with most conquerors. They never really stop to think about the sheer amount of paperwork ruling an empire would incur.

I don't think Gengkhis Khan had this problem.

[Alvecia]

That's the thing with most conquerors. They never really stop to think about the sheer amount of paperwork ruling an empire would incur.

I don't think Gengkhis Khan had this problem.

Did pretty well as a result.

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

I don't think Gengkhis Khan had this problem.

Did pretty well as a result.

Yeah.

[Lord Dominator]

Did pretty well on the successor thing also, which is usually the other big trip-up, messed up in not having a system for said successor to designate their own so well.

[Forsher]

Why do you assume that pretentious people can't genuinely like things? Why would you assume anyone thinks being pretentious means you can't like things? How does this even work?

If someone says they admire something, and you say they're just being pretentious, then you are necessarily saying that they don't really see as much merit in it as they claim; they just think that praising this thing will make them look clever or refined or something like that. You can't be sincerely pretentious.

No, people can be sincerely pretentious. It means they like things which are insincere:

Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed.

That you're conned by a fake diamond means that you think it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. You're sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

Alternatively it means that they're the conman selling you a fake diamond. Which is insincere but they're sincerely trying to convince you it is a fake diamond. Or, as the case actually is, that it's more important, meritorious, clever or refined than it actually is.

Which is more correct to what we're talking about? And that brings us to your second paragraph.

Unless you're saying they're usually pretentious, but on this occasion they're being sincere? In which case, why even bring it up? If you think the people who say BP genuinely believe it's a great movie, why are you throwing the word "pretentious" around? This is why I asked you to expand on what you meant, because I really don't understand what you're trying to say with this word.

You're saying I said the Academy are "conartists".

Because the Oscars have such a good record at discerning good and bad films as opposed to pretentious and unwatched films...

That is, I said the Academy are great at spotting the fake diamond in the sorting bin of... er, diamonds. Maybe a better metaphor would be "the Academy have a great track record at finding the apple with a worm in it so asking them to buy your apples would be idiotic".

Now... this very much is saying that if you wanted the Academy to pick up the films which relatively lack merit (or even actively bad films), they'd be a good group of people to ask, but it's certainly not saying that they're conmen. It might be saying that they'll try and on-sell their fake diamonds to you without getting any further authentication because otherwise their business would collapse but that still doesn't mean it's saying the Academy doesn't authentically value its decisions. It might even being saying that being liked by the Academy suggests the film is pretentious but that's still not the same thing. It's just saying it's unqualified for the job and its decisions are worthless but continues to act as though it is anyway.

To put it in internet speak, believers in the Academy are sheeple and it is time to wake up.

Maybe we can clear this up: I liked Black Panther. As soon as the credits rolled, the person sitting next to me said "That was really boring" to which I replied "I thought it was the best one yet". I stand by that opinion. Am I being pretentious?

This is irrelevant, as has been explained. The question is whether or not Black Panther is "a run-of-the-mill MCU film," which it is. The subsidiary question is whether or not the Academy is a suitable body to answer this question. To which I say, "it's absurd to think that it is (because it selects films people either don't watch or don't consider to be that momentous/valuable/important/etc.)". We haven't moved on from this point in the conversation because apparently this means the Academy lied about liking BP. Which it didn't. It's just not worth listening to. Like. At. All.

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

...okay, this is just beyond nonsense:

That you're conned by a fake diamond means that you think it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. You're sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

I think this whole argument basically stems from your own narcissism. You cannot possibly imagine that someone's opinion could be validly different from yours. So you know BP is average (which seems to have shades of "quality is objective" too). You were right to use the word "sheeple"; your mentality is exactly that of a conspiracy theorist.

People are just able to see stuff in films you can't, or else they value things you saw but didn't care for. Spend less time stroking your ego and more time trying to understand that.

(I like how you didn't have the courage to call me pretentious. The Academy is far from the only group of people who thought Black Panther was great. Go on: call me a pretentious dupe. Call all the critics dupes. That's what you obviously believe.)

[Forsher]

I'm sorry if you somehow think complete plot similarity =/= ripoff.

BP and Ragarnok are far more similar than Madagascar and The Wild.

Well, again I think you're being rather generous with your assessment, but whatever.

You're also completely not understanding the nature of narrative to make your faulty comparison a strike against the film. Or how movies are made. There's this delightful assumption that one is absolutely a rip off of the other and who is the villain is based on one coming out four months ahead of the other, which ignores the complexity of how films are made. Unless you're under the impression that Coogler looked at the success of Tahiti's Ragnarok in October and then made a massive special effects laden blockbuster starting in November so it could be released in February. It is a completely adorable view of how the film industry works.

See... I'd like to say you're just being way too literal about what "ripoff" means (1.1) and I was going to say this yesterday when I got home but due to reasons I ended up falling asleep instead but I've changed my mind. People call Madagascar a ripoff or, alternatively, the Wild and similar with A Bug's Life and Antz... and, honestly, I doubt corporate espionage or whatever it was caused Antz and A Bug's Life to be (allegedly... I do not remember Antz) similar could give a more accurate impression of how the two films would play out. They wilfully decided to release two films set in futuristic monarchies right next to each other. That decision, right there, put them in a situation where they'd need to work to avoid plot similarity.

Now, no doubt you're going to argue that since these are from the same studio and in fact the same shared universe that they are completely

They should share thematic similarities because they're in the same Universe... compare the other futuristic monarchy they made and Ragnarok, i.e. Inhumans. It's blatant and a good thing. The plot similarity is... you know, now that it comes up, I guess it's there but Maximus wasn't a secret rival and honestly if someone hadn't brought it up a few days ago I wouldn't even have remembered that he wanted to invade anywhere (also because it was a television show they also made everyone work towards coming back together whereas the movies don't).

aware of each other during production and that is completely true of Fiege who oversees the production of all the films, but that also makes some wildly inaccurate assumptions of the nature of the industry or the freedoms and restrictions filmmakers like Tahiti and Coogler are given.

Not to mention you're not actually describing plot, something new screenwriters have a hard time dealing with, but rather similar elements. How the characters deal with those elements is the plot, and the two deal with them very differently with very different results and implications.

Do they though?

Sure, Wakanda doesn't get blown up but they both result in massive final battles over the future of the state (and in particular its foreign policy), both (for different reasons) see their central heroes fail to beat their villains in straight combat (T'Challa managing to use... his environment to stab his cousin does, at least, defeat his opponent 1v1), both have collect the team mini-plots with "refused the call and then changed his mind" moments and so on.

Finally, your fascination with novelty is a misguided 20th century obsession that has fuckall to do with the quality of a story.

But everything to do with the original claims (also, return to the literalism of your definition of ripoff... although, yes, Ragnarok is a substantially better movie than BP):

• Black Panther is the "usual" MCU film but without the jokes.[/url
• ][url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=410049&p=35311390#p35311390]Black Panther is extremely repetitive of Ragnarok. Notice how this is a parenthetical remark?
• Black Panther is a BETTER story than Infinity War. Notice how this isn't a parenthetical remark?

I don't know what you think you read, but I didn't write it.

I set out to defend the claim that BP is a typical MCU film. I appear to have got you to migrate from "it's complete reach to say it's the same as Ragnarok" to "you're exaggerating the degree of similarity". That's a win, at least by the standards of viewpoint reconciliation in NSG.

Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote many of the same stories. Hell, John Fletcher wrote a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew called A Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed. During Shakespeare's time to get Shakespeare's attention. You might want to go, "Well, how many people know that?" and my answer is, "People who like Jacobian theater do." The play was popular in its time.

And insofar as anything I wrote, I am on board with Fletcher, having SPECIFICALLY praised Black Panther for its ability to contribute to the pre-existing MCU storyline. But beyond that, this is just not relevant to what I've been saying.

As it happens... I do think Black Panther is weaker because it repeats stuff but it's not just the stuff that makes it a ripoff of Ragnarok. No, BP is run of the mill because it does a usual MCU thing...

• Killmonger is a classic Iron-Man villain complete with (dad related, here) revenge, identical powers and death in a dark fight scene, who also steals Vanko's "chase down the flying objects" finale;
• it (like Ragnarok) culminates in a massive fight (although it does have some overtures to furthering the story due to the romance side-plot with W'Kabi but you take that plot line out of the film and nothing changes at all);
• it (and this isn't a MCU exclusive and very annoying element) has a dark pitched battle ending too (made worse by how literal they made the mirror... compare Ragnarok where Hela and Thor have different powers and it's in the sunlight for both the big army piece and the 1v1);
• kill the bad guy (necessary for T'Challa's story, see Zemo, but in context of the wider MCU this has been a very frustrating and story limiting habit... at least with Ragnarok you can pretend, that Hela might have survived because there's some ambiguity)... twice.

But the key thing with BP versus Ragnarok is that Ragnarok is better because it's more enjoyable. And that's largely because I like funny films and BP's a bit of a cop out... unwilling to feel like The Incredible Hulk let alone Man of Steel or The Judge and unwilling to be like Ragnarok (probably because, if it did, everyone would recognise its blatant similarity).

Also, let's grant your flimsy premise of 'total ripoff', as comically applied as it is. Going back to Taming of the Shrew, the literal plot of that was the inspiration of 10 Things I Hate About You. West Side Story? Romeo and Juliet. Lion King? Plenty of similarities to Hamlet. You can't watch West Side Story and assume to have seen Romeo and Juliet and these are intentional and direct influences.

I like your Third Rock from the Sun reference. (They bring up the Hamlet/Lion King thing.)

Then there's things like the heroes journey and other mythology (which it's important to remember that Thor is a legitimate mythological character playing out an adaptation of the actual mythology of Ragnarok, the end of times. You know, how the only way to stop Hela was to allow for the destruction of Asgard, tying to the theme that Thor was not the god of hammers, he was the god of Thunder. The hammer was a focus, not his identity. The physical place of Asgard was a symbol of Asgard, but Asgard was its people. Whereas Killmonger is the result of a dogmatic adherence to isolation and protectionism that had allowed suffering that Wakanda could have prevented.

You're comparing the hero to the villain here. Hela is the result of a dogmatic adherence to anti-isolationism and... well, it's not really possible to say that she's got anything else in her motive... but she wants to do the same thing as Killmonger. His motives are the ideological crux of BP but they're not everything that's in it. And they don't change that the same "bigger picture" message is said by both.

The absolute strength of Black Panther, the thing that people are responding to, is that Killmonger is in his core premise is right. Wakanda's isolation has tacitly endorsed the suffering it could have prevented. If we're going to reach and claw for a 'rip off' then it bears more similarities with Spider-man than Ragnarok. In this case Wakanda is Parker, focusing on their own power and allowing their Uncle Ben, the rest of the African people, get shot and not doing anything. Only it taking centuries. When the both the villain and the hero are right, it becomes a more compelling story. Hela's not 'right', she's just mad like every other super villain.

Killmonger practically quotes The White Man's Burden. He literally says "the sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire". He's not right. Nakia is right. As a tool of communication almost everyone... you included... takes the wrong message from Black Panther. The alternative is to believe that Coogler let stuff like that sun line into his film without realising how strong a critique they are of Killmonger's interpretations. T'Challa is presented as a conservative member of the Wakandan elite... wanting to continue traditional practices... contrasted with Nakia (good) and W'Kabi (bad) to start with... and then along comes Killmonger preaching the same W'Kabian messages T'Challa didn't embrace before.

You can take Ragnarok where Thor wants Loki!Odin to take a more pro-active stance but Loki claims he's respecting internal freedoms and then we meet Hela who would rule everywhere and steal from everyone. It's again about this same colonial relationship and it's the villain who makes it colonial whereas the heroic characters present two alternatives. Loki who agrees with T'Challa and Thor who is Nakian in his thinking.\

If we're going to start calling 'rip off' about unknown claimants to the throne or a hero that has a hardship, a 'point of no return' at the end of the second act that they overcome it in the second, we're going to have to decide that most stories are just 'rip offs' of stories we've been telling for centuries at this point, as Ragnarok didn't invent the unknown claimant to the throne (Man in the Iron Mask, just off the top of my head), nor power struggles of the direction of the throne (Robin Hood?).

You want to attackh value judgements that aren't there.

Frankly, you've fallen prey to a specific flavor of clickbaiting internet critique, that makes for five minute videos making mountains out of a few molehills of comparison, sort of a playschool version of critique that identifies elements and influences and places them in the context of the artform. It sure sounds good and makes for good clicks...it's how I make my living, so click away...but it's not the cut and dry thing you're trying to make it out to be. It's silly. You should stop and just enjoy your movies. Or not. But at least stop making these silly declaratives.

Mine is not a house of cards, but a cathedral made in stone.

[Forsher]

Hela wants to make an Asgardian Space Empire because it's dishonest to pretend it's anything else.

I'm really pretty sure she just likes conquering things.

Valkyrie:

Look, I already faced her once
back when I believed in the throne,
and it cost me everything.
That's what's wrong with Asgard.
The throne, the secrets,
the whole golden sham.

Hela:

It seems our father's solution
to every problem was to cover it up.
Or to cast it out.
He told you you were worthy.
He said the same thing to me.
You see?
You never knew him.
Not at his best.
Odin and I drowned entire civilisations
in blood and tears.
Where do you think all this gold
came from?
And then, one day,
he decided to become a benevolent king.
To foster peace, to protect life.
To have you.

Some of that might technically be from Thor. And similarly with Skurge here:

Does no one remember me?
Has no one been taught our history?
Look at these lies.
Goblets and garden parties?
Peace treaties?
Odin...
Proud to have it,
ashamed of how he got it.
We were unstoppable.
I was his weapon in the conquest
that built Asgard's empire.
One by one, the realms became ours.
But then,
simply because my ambition outgrew his,
he banished me, caged me,
locked me away like an animal.
Before that,
Asgard's warriors were honored,
their bodies buried as heroes
beneath this very palace.

Hela might just want to conquer everywhere and she certainly loves doing that but the film is also pretty clear that Hela thinks this is the entire nature of Asgard and that it's wrong for it to be something else.

[Forsher]

...okay, this is just beyond nonsense:

That you're conned by a fake diamond means that you think it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. You're sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

I think this whole argument basically stems from your own narcissism. You cannot possibly imagine that someone's opinion could be validly different from yours. So you know BP is average (which seems to have shades of "quality is objective" too). You were right to use the word "sheeple"; your mentality is exactly that of a conspiracy theorist.

People are just able to see stuff in films you can't, or else they value things you saw but didn't care for. Spend less time stroking your ego and more time trying to understand that.

(I like how you didn't have the courage to call me pretentious. The Academy is far from the only group of people who thought Black Panther was great. Go on: call me a pretentious dupe. Call all the critics dupes. That's what you obviously believe.)

You're free to pretend whatever meanings exist in plain English as you like. You're also free to have the courage to try and show those meanings exist. That you don't try is because you can't. You have gone from misunderstanding what I said to denying that you could be wrong about what I'm saying; that my "protests" of my meaning are fake, fake, fake. You, now, are the conned diamond dealer... but the fist buyer said your diamond is fake but are trying to sell it to the next sucker in line anyway.

Most people who go on about how art has a subjective meaning are either unafraid to embrace the true meaninglessness it implies (contrast how deconstructionists still put their names on their books... and if you're particularly unfair how they still write them) or don't actually believe it (where I suspect you lie). I free myself from this pretence. There is no quality to a film other than enjoyment. If you hate-watch something and like hate-watching it, then you didn't hate-watch it... you actually liked it. Ironic enjoyment doesn't exist. Black Panther is ordinary. That's a fact. It doesn't do anything (except for trivial details like where it's set or who's in it or the dialogue or the musical choices or the costumes or who made it or... and so forth) that previous MCU movies haven't done. But you want to pretend it's "not run of the mill". Well, it's not. It's got a whole bunch of things that the MCU's done before... Oh, you want to say that you mean that as a statement of the film's quality? And you so clearly do given with that reference to the Oscars. But you're also saying that objective film quality doesn't exist? How do you reconcile these points of view?

Oh, you're wanting to quote stuff like this?

You know, when someone tells me they love a film I didn't care for, I tend to assume they've noticed something I haven't or that they value something I don't. I don't assume they're lying about liking it.

Maybe the people who like BP aren't being pretentious. That is, they're not pretending to be cleverer than you. Maybe they're just...cleverer than you.

Where the actual fuck do you get off here? Why are your posts somehow meant to actually represent your state of mind whereas mine are lying? You've spent this entire conversation assuming that I've got some ulterior motive and that my remarks are anything other than superficial. That I can't possibly be saying what I'm saying and what I'm saying I've said? And you've got the gall to write crap like:

I think this whole argument basically stems from your own narcissism. You cannot possibly imagine that someone's opinion could be validly different from yours

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.

Do you actually not see what you're doing here?

I didn't call you pretentious so therefore I must be a coward because obviously I do actually think you're pretentious because I'm obviously lying about what I wrote and why I said it.

That's your argument. Literally. That is what you are saying. And that, right there, is the most solipsistic and self-absorbed thinking I've ever had the misfortune to come across on A&F. Maybe I've seen worse on NSG and elsewhere online but it doesn't spring to mind.

The Oscars are very, very bad movie experts. You shouldn't use appeals to authority to justify your opinions and if you're going to do so you shouldn't use the Oscars and you especially shouldn't come out guns blazing or subjective film value.

Did you ever stop to ask yourself (and you obviously haven't in this projection-fest) why I said "unwatched and pretentious"? Did you? It's because unpopular films aren't good ones. Black Panther is neither unwatched nor pretentious. Coogler, Feige and the rest of the people made a film that's pretty aware of what it is. I said above that it didn't have the guts to adopt a different tone. No-one's going to mistake this... and with its messages it easily could have been... for an Oscarbait film and no-one's going to say that it wasn't obvious about what it's about. It might not say something like "the fall through the air of a true wise friend called Piggy" or "his arm was conditioned by a civilisation that new nothing of him" (and both those quotes are incomplete and probably subtly screwed up in other ways because it's been seven years since I read the book) but Black Panther (like Ragnarok) is pretty damn explicit about what it thinks it's about:

Why?
So you can just lock me up?
Nah.
Just bury me in the ocean...
with my ancestors
that jumped from the ships.
'Cause they knew
death was better than bondage.

or

These items aren't for sale.
How do you think
your ancestors got these?
You think they paid
a fair price?
Or did they take it, like they
took everything else?

We're not meant to interpret metaphor upon metaphor or rely on crude allegories, parables or God-damn ice-cream koans. The film's got the decency and moral fortitude (clearly a rare thing) to be explicit. And usually the Academy doesn't do that. It chooses blue curtains = sadness films that are unwatched, blank interpretative slates or both. And before you say I'm just making these views up to back up what I'm saying now? Oh, you poor sweet thing:

Seeing that episode as preaching a "people are people" message is... not sustainable. Here's a pro tip for enjoying media: the only people who see messages in texts are English teachers. If you're not an English teacher, why do you care that the curtains are blue. Don't look and you won't see. Unless it's Lord of the Flies which has a handy-dandy tl;dr built in. In this episode, you needed to want to find the political moral to think it obvious.

Black Panther is a middle of the road MCU film because it is like most MCU films. It doesn't do anything different. It does everything the same. Except with fewer jokes. That's the claim. You want to get some answers to some pathetic "gotcha" question? Go find someone who's not trying to shit over your dumb fallacious arguments because while I might not have had a lot of luck with that, it's oh so clearly what I was doing.

The only quality to which a film can profess to possess is popularity. It's good because you like it. We can give it an award because everyone really likes it. The Academy? Not in this game. Not even in the game of "everyone would like this if they actually saw it". That's why Black Panther is weaker than a lot of its rivals. Because it's done stuff we've seen. Which people are over. That's the second game the Academy isn't in. Predicting popularity from the choice of elements, aka "everyone would like this if they actually saw it". I know I just told CTOAN that he's attaching value judgements that aren't there but I also said:

As it happens... I do think Black Panther is weaker because it repeats stuff but it's not just the stuff that makes it a ripoff of Ragnarok. No, BP is run of the mill because it does a usual MCU thing...

and

But the key thing with BP versus Ragnarok is that Ragnarok is better because it's more enjoyable.

Pretentious people can exist and they earnestly like pretentious things. They shouldn't like BP since, you know, it's in the "some anvils need to be dropped category". They're not lying to you. I'm not lying to you. You're lying to you.

Correction: films can also be good if they do what they want to do, but since a lot of what the Oscars rewards are Oscarbait and therefore what the film wanted to do was be rewarded by the Oscars and this isn't usually seen as a meaningful endeavour it doesn't really change anything. (Of course, I suppose, we could wonder why people think Oscarbait is an insult but since you have no interest in this conversation or, indeed, in respecting why people believe and/or say things this is really rather pointless even if it could fundamentally affect the conclusion of that last point.)

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

I honestly have no idea what your position is, beyond "I'm right and you're all wrong". You leap about from one point to the next. Cons, sincerity, insincerity, pretentiousness (I still don't know what you mean by that, beyond that it's part of the reason why you're right and other people are wrong), irony, enjoyment, facts, blue curtains, Lord of the Flies. Your posts are also far too long, and as always you use incomprehensible analogies. Who's the diamond seller? Who am I? What do I think of my diamond? Is it a diamond or not a diamond? I've no fucking idea, and I'm not going to spend hours trying to respond to this over-long rubbish, because I know the only thing I'll receive is another over-long post in which bemoan the fact that I haven't understood you.

Now, no doubt you'll take the fact that I can't make head nor tail of what you're saying as proof of your own superior intellect. Well, you're welcome to. Good day.

[Forsher]

I honestly have no idea what your position is, beyond "I'm right and you're all wrong". You leap about from one point to the next. Cons, sincerity, insincerity, pretentiousness (I still don't know what you mean by that, beyond that it's part of the reason why you're right and other people are wrong), irony, enjoyment, facts, blue curtains, Lord of the Flies. Your posts are also far too long, and as always you use incomprehensible analogies. Who's the diamond seller? Who am I? What do I think of my diamond? Is it a diamond or not a diamond? I've no fucking idea, and I'm not going to spend hours trying to respond to this over-long rubbish, because I know the only thing I'll receive is another over-long post in which bemoan the fact that I haven't understood you.

Now, no doubt you'll take the fact that I can't make head nor tail of what you're saying as proof of your own superior intellect. Well, you're welcome to. Good day.

Nope. It's too late. You can get to play the "I'm confused" card or "it's too long" but not after you pull BS like this:

...okay, this is just beyond nonsense:

That you're conned by a fake diamond means that you think it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. You're sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

I think this whole argument basically stems from your own narcissism. You cannot possibly imagine that someone's opinion could be validly different from yours. So you know BP is average (which seems to have shades of "quality is objective" too). You were right to use the word "sheeple"; your mentality is exactly that of a conspiracy theorist.

People are just able to see stuff in films you can't, or else they value things you saw but didn't care for. Spend less time stroking your ego and more time trying to understand that.

(I like how you didn't have the courage to call me pretentious. The Academy is far from the only group of people who thought Black Panther was great. Go on: call me a pretentious dupe. Call all the critics dupes. That's what you obviously believe.)

You want to say "I'm sorry, I still don't understand" then say that. Say you don't understand the analogies. If I thought they were unclear... I wouldn't use them.

That you're conned by a fake diamond means that you think it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. You're sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

That you can be anyone, but in this case it is you. If pronouns confuse you so terribly much then replace them with words. Try:

That John's conned by a fake diamond means that John thinks it's a real one... even though the actual diamond is fake. John's sincere in this belief even though it's based on a fiction.

Alternatively take Adam. Here Adam's the conman selling Susan a fake diamond. Which is insincere but Adam's sincerely trying to convince Susan it is a fake diamond. Or, as the case actually is, that it's more important, meritorious, clever or refined than it actually is.

John is not important. He's a placeholder for the generic someone you used in your own post. What is confusing here?

I don't see how these are possibly confusing. If John's conned by a diamond, it means he thinks it real but it isn't. John thinks he has a real diamond but he doesn't have a real diamond. He sincerely holds a fake belief. Just like how someone can sincerely like something which is insincere (because a pretentious film is aware that it's vapid but tries to convince you it isn't).

Adam has a diamond he knows to be fake. That doesn't mean he is not earnestly trying to sell it to Susan. Just like how someone can sincerely try to get you to believe something vapid is actually really important.

When you're confused it's up to you to do the decent thing and assume I am sincerely trying to communicate something to you. Explain what you find misleading. Notice what I did here? You don't for whatever reason. Instead you write that garbage above.

Also... have a care to note this post:

Your theory is compelling up until the point you mistake it for saying "people only like BP because it's pretentious". It doesn't say this. It says "the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality (because they're pretentious) so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable".

Not remotely the same thing.

I particularly love the bit where you try and pretend I claim people are "lying about liking" movies.

I've been telling you that you misunderstand the entire time. When we don't get past this what happens? I try to figure out, first, what is causing the confusion. And then I try to explain around it. Both, to you, incredibly villainous things to do. Even though you, too, imagine that we must both be misunderstanding each other. Except, of course, you think we're both mistaken.

Take out the parenthesis. That's my point. That's how parenthesis works.

Step One:

"the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable".

Do you agree?

Step Two:

(because they're pretentious)

Do you (a) agree that the Academy is pretentious and (b) agree that this means they cannot discern film quality.

That's three things to talk about. In a hierarchy of importance. The comment is parenthetical because it's the explanation. You should be able to first understand what I'm saying... and you don't... and then understand the reasoning. In this case, you appeared to be confused by the reasoning so I put it in brackets to make it clear it's not a necessary part of the post. I also reduced it from "unwatched and pretentious".

"the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable" just does not mean, and cannot mean, "people only like BP because they're pretentious" but that's what it was, somehow, understood.

[HC Eredivisie]

I wanted to post something about the time travel apparantly needed to fix the snap can be seen in IW as the Time Stone seems to be in use when Dr. Strange hands it over to Thanos and the Avengers going back in time to the battle of NY to collect the Stones but I guess that's another thread. And I might have missed it but where's the insincere but pretentious fake diamond seller in BP? I don't remember that scene.

So Nebula ditches Stark in space.

If it's been months since the snap I guess the unsnap will involve time-travel, as it would be terrible to adjust living with people who you mourned for and just accpeted that they're gone. This means Thanos will be killed or they put him in a alternate reality where he thinks his plan worked.

Or Spider-man: Far from home takes place before the snap (he was coming back from the airport during the bus ride in Infinity War) and it only gets partially undone.

Peter was going to MOMA. He tells Iron Man that during the fight in New York.

I heard 'field trip' and nothing specific, but maybe it they talked about it later.

[Forsher]

I wanted to post something about the time travel apparantly needed to fix the snap can be seen in IW as the Time Stone seems to be in use when Dr. Strange hands it over to Thanos and the Avengers going back in time to the battle of NY to collect the Stones but I guess that's another thread. And I might have missed it but where's the insincere but pretentious fake diamond seller in BP? I don't remember that scene.

Ask yourself, do these two things have the same meaning:

1. "the Academy are incapable of discerning film quality so your appeal to that particular authority is laughable"
2. "people only like BP because they're pretentious"

Also... MOMA just turns into nearly unintelligible gibberish/a scream because Peter's pulled away as he says it.