Saw the new trailer for the Loki show on Disney’s streaming service. If what passes for wit in that clip is the cream of the TV series, set your expectations real low. Or if you don’t want to support the Mouseopoly, use it as a inspiration to not bother watching at all. For more of that kind of reinforcement, see also the Marvel “Phase Four” trailer that was mostly emotional bits from the last 15 years of their movies, interspersed with straight-up propaganda-sounding lines about “being a part of something greater.” It felt like a republican candidate TV spot and was manipulative in a way that just isn’t working on me anymore, quite specifically because of the way they set me up to give a shit about Space Shooters in episode 7 then landed like a shart in episode 9.
That new A24 movie looks tight though, hm?
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The same weirdo who tried to drop some suicidal ideation in my last post about the Mousopoly thinks I’m jealous. Again, completely misreading me as a human on every level. I don’t care about power or fame or accolades, or even money except insofar as it’s necessary to reduce pain and risk in life. Am I also that wrong when I armchair psychoanalyze my political opposites? What are the limits of human understanding? Life is funny.
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I don’t normally read posts from creeps, but I’m glad I read these ones. They’ve been thought-provoking, in a way. Like, why do I even feel the need to comment on this? I did say that in the article and what I said was accurate, but maybe it bears highlighting and emphasizing.
No, you silly goose, it isn’t jealousy. As a consumer of media, I like my escapism as much as you. I liked Episodes 7 and 8 well enough. If I *didn’t* like those movies, I wouldn’t even care that the third one was shit. It would be like caring about the Saw franchise going downhill. I don’t know those movies and they’re outside my interest enough that comparing them would be meaningless to me, rejecting them pointless since I’d never embraced them in the first place.
So not jealousy. Disappointment. And not the disappointment of having a high expectation either, more like the disappointment of watching a capitalist endeavor do what they always do with art – watching something that was once fun and vibrant turn cowardly and mediocre.
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Thinking back on the first breakout success of the MCU, Iron Man. The over the top product placement for Burger King was so bizarre it became one of the most memorable things in the movie. The commercial for US militarism that was to stand in contrast to his later commitment to disarmament was framed as an exultant badass moment that, in the memory, is utterly disconnected from the ultimate “moral” of the story – one that Stark throws away right at the beginning of Iron Man 2 with “I’m bored of the liberal agenda.” It was a dope little movie, but its flaws were like the chonking grit at the center of modern Marvel’s cancerous cyst.
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