There’s this fellow, Guy Windsor, who’s about as much an expert in sword-fighting as anyone can be in an era in which it’s pretty much unheard of for anyone to have to fight for their life with a long sharp piece of steel.
I am a swordsman, writer, and entrepreneur. I research and teach medieval and Renaissance Italian swordsmanship, blog about it, write books about it, have developed a card game to teach it (which involved founding another company, and crowdfunding), and run The School of European Swordsmanship.
So here’s Windsor talking about the things movies and books get wrong about swords.
He says something 2½ minutes in that you don’t need to be a skilled swordsman to appreciate.
…most historical combat that is put into books is boring. You read a book for the characters and plot. The action is there because it’s exciting, but the reason it’s exciting is because your character who you care about is in danger.
That’s true, not just for historical combat, but for superhero movies. Those three sentences ought to be tattooed onto the back of the right hand of every director who makes one of those omnipresent escapist movies of the summer. That awful Superman movie that spent the last half playing wrecking ball with New York? Boring. All the big Marvel movies that bring together a grab-bag of Avengers to smash things? Boring.
I did like the Winter Soldier because it did something different: sure, there was fighting, but the main thrust of the story was character and friendship. You liked Captain America and you saw him and his friends grappling with a problem that wasn’t going to be solved exclusively by destroying everything.
And that’s what I liked about the latest entry, Ant-Man. It’s a ridiculous premise, and the physics just won’t work, but I could set that aside because it wasn’t the center of the story. The creators remembered something important about this kind of movie: it isn’t about saving the world from existential danger, it’s about having fun. Go read Lance Mannion, who writes the very best reviews of these kinds of movies, so I don’t have to explain it.
Also, my very favorite character in the movie was Luis, played by Michael Peña. When your secondary characters are interesting and entertaining even without a super suit, that tells me the writers and directors cared about something other than throwing up garish icons that can break things.
You nailed it. Peña was awesome, and the “Luis explains” scenes had me, and most of the theater, roaring with laughter.
What I didn’t like was the kiss between Rudd and Lilly at the end. It felt forced, token, just there for the formula.
The winter soldier was the most impressive of the Marvel movies because it tapped into the ‘grey’ areas of these things. You build a gigantic uber funded paramilitary style organization to defend people and guess what? It’s likely to act like a tyrant. Having Captain America be the loner sticking up for ordinary people was pretty revolutionary – for the most jingoistic named character, they made him the only real moral agency. Plus as you say, the action was exciting but compact and though there were a few superhuman style exuberances – the majority was pretty believable (even the final showdown was filled with a bit of pathos and tinged with regret which is mind blowing).
Just to point out though, in these movies, it’s rarely the director who makes that kind of call. They often want to focus on dialogue and character but the execs insist on a third act smash down to justify the fx budget and have some spectacle for the trailers. Most directors and writers are quite into an unorthodox structure and that’s why even so many populist types go and release an indie flick or two once in a while to cleanse themselves. Save your ire for the studio execs and the producers.
I guess we’re just old farts complaining about the kids on our lawn. Anyway, I pretty much hated The Hobbit movies for the same reason. It’s not that I didn’t care about the characters at all; I just didn’t care about them _enough_ to watch an apparently endless sequence of action sequences.
Couple of points, the last one (point 2) contains spoilers for Ant-Man. (though you did see it in the trailer, so not sure how spoilery it is). The first one is my comic book nerd being left out, so sorry about that.
1. Auraboy – Captain America may be jingoistic named, but that’s not really revolutionary. That’s how the character has been portrayed in the comics since at least the early 90s. There’s a great scene in Frank Miller’s run of Daredevil (and I’m not a Frank Miller fan) where the military is ordered to stop Daredevil because of political reasons (I don’t remember the details). Anyway, Cap is on the mission, but his superior orders a tech to smart bomb of an area wher they suspect Daredevil to be, which kills several people in a tennament and misses Daredevil anyway (funny how that sounds like a drone strike today). Later, when Captain America is surveying the wreckage, in shock that this would happen, he spots Daredevil helping the wounded. Cap just walks away and resigns from the army. Since Civil War (which was 2004ish) Cap has really been the true believer in the American Dream, which means he’s generally portrayed as pretty progressive (ignoring the horrible Ultimate universe of him. Just ignore it).
2. What I really loved about Ant Man is that I feel like the movie is a commentary on other Marvel movies, especially the 3rd act. All this stuff happens that’s cool and engrossing for the beginning and middle, and then at the end you have a GIANT CGI BATTLE. But in Ant Man, during the “Epic train battle” they keep zooming out, and showing you that the stakes are low. It’s a toy train set, it’s all a trick. If you get run over, the train falls because it’s a toy train. I feel like that was them pointing fingers at the other Marvel movies. “Here’s your obligatory giant battle ending, Marvel Studios, but the audience knows it doesn’t matter.” Then the real ending happens and it’s not punching and destruction, it’s a standoff and a decision, and that ending means so much more and actually hits you. I liked Ant Man a lot.
I’m a huge Tolkien fan. I’ve read Lord of the Rings 200+ times. And I didn’t like the movies either. Aragorn was about the least regal character possible, Frodo looking in love at Sam all the time was boring, and the plot was very much overgrown by too many and too long action scenes. I didn’t care to go see The Hobbit.
This is the same reason that the light saber scenes in the original trilogy were much better than the prequels. They were about the characters and their relationships with each other, not about the flashy swords flying everywhere.
I liked the movie okay. Not enough to watch it in theaters again, but enough that I didn’t feel cheated out of my theater money. But I expected next to nothing out of it, and enjoyed the Luis stories.
My husband, on the other hand, HATES this movie without even seeing it. And the reason is simple- he hates Ant-Man. He hates wife-beater Ant-Man in the comics, he hates emotionally abusive reluctant hero Ant-Man in the tv show, he just hates everything about that character He likes the Wasp. He’s sick of seeing movies sideline the female characters for another white guy. When I told him the synopsis, he was mad that Janet Pym gets no lines. He was mad that the daughter was disrespected and sidelined (and no, a last-second stinger does not make up for it).
And I respect that too, because it is getting frustrating as fuck that there has never been a good superheroine movie. I’m not talking Emmy, but enjoyable with actually developed characters with goals and personality.
auraboy @ 2;
I agree with your point here – I liked The Winter Soldier because it seemed very self aware and relevant in its depiction of Shield as symbolic of unaccountable government power and how that is always dangerous, even if those behind it convince themselves of the necessary character and good intentions underpinning their actions as Fury did. There is a particularly effective exchange between Fury and Captain America where Fury seeks to justify the development of what essentially amounts to a weapon of mass targeted slaughter as being pursuant to the greater good and a guarantee of freedom, and Cap responds that this isn’t freedom, but rather fear. It all relates back to the truism that those who are overly eager to sacrifice freedom for security will ultimately receive neither, and that the organs of covert power are never the most effective or reliable champions of individual rights. In our increasingly paranoid and security obsessed era, where legal protections are being eroded a little more every day in the name of keeping us safe, that is all rather topical.
That said, it also had the side effect of casting someone called Captain America (that as you say couldn’t have much more of a jingoistic name) who dates from the 1940s of all decades as the true voice in defence of progressive values, and on several occasions seems to be holding up a spectacularly whitewashed version of that era as an ideal of what America should be and should stand for. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but it would take a lot of revisionist history to try to convert mid twentieth century America into some idealised bastion of freedom and equality, especially if one wasn’t as light of hue as the eponymous pasty hero.
Or not as straight.
Or not the owner and operator of a penis.
Given how smart and on the ball the rest of the movie was, I don’t think the writers would simply miss the obvious implications of that. Perhaps there is something I am not seeing here. It is particularly interesting that one of the recent Marvel TV series, Agent Carter, takes a character from the first Captain America movie and has her operating in the post war era, engaging in daring do while dealing with the pervasive sexism of the era. That suggests that the people behind the broader Marvel continuity are not wholly oblivious to the many inequities of the period.
@jason the cripple: +1
It’s also something that samurai movies (of which the original SW was inspired) tend to get right: most of the time in a duel is spent in the build up, focusing on the tension between the two characters. Once blades start moving, it’s over in a moment. Because the first person to get cut, either from making a mistake or being to slow, dies, and that’s how it is in reality.
@Gregory
It is true that Captain America seems to exist in this odd time where military units and neighborhoods were integrated and it never has more than a few racist remarks that make the character who said them look stupid and they get over quickly. (His nickname is “Dum Dum” after all).
But I hate this idea that it was impossible for a man to be supportive of women or minority rights in the 1940s. There was a woman’s movement and civil rights movement in the 1940s that white men did support. They might have been in the minority, but they existed. Steve Rogers is supposed to be the exemplar- so why WOULDN’T he have picked the right values? He isn’t perfect at it, but he’s a good man so he tries. And it is the directors and writers going “Yep, that’s the right values, everyone else during that time was wrong”.
If everyone was like that, THAT would be unbelievable. But has you pointed out in Agent Carter, everyone was not like that. Most, in fact, were sexist asshats who didn’t respect Agent Carter despite the fact that she is awesome and who I want to be if I can ever grow up.
Interesting bit of comic trivia: Ant-Man’s wife beating is actually the result of a miscommunication between the writer and artist. The first comic where he beats Wasp was originally written where Ant-Man is making a dismissive gesture and accidentally hits Wasp, who was standing close behind him. The next panel is the rest of the Avengers standing in shock and the issue ends. The following issue was supposed to be Hank Pym being super apologetic and turning over a new leaf because the accident was a shock to him.
However, the artist saw the note “Hank hits Janet” and drew him clearly turning around and smacking her across the face. I’m not sure exactly what production issues caused it to go to print that way, but that was the start of it. The next issue was Janet getting a divorce instead of the planned storyline.
I’m with the reviewer PZ linked in the original post, Henry Pym is practically a supervillain in the Marvel, responsible for many of the big disasters, from Annihilation to Ultron.
From both a story and a business standpoint, I don’t understand the Ant-Man movie. The new Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers, former Ms. Marvel) is a bigger, more important character and a best seller. Jessica Drew is more interesting and a best seller. As far as I know, neither has any rights issues (which is why I’m leaving off a few other characters that are big and import but have no movie, like Namor) I just don’t get why neither of them are featured in movies already.
Gregory Greenwood @ 8
Yes, I understand the dichotomy there. The filmmakers have said elsewhere (as they are responsible for the Agent Carter TV spin off) that they saw Captain America as a man not at home in either time. He is the man who is experienced with bullying and being overlooked and just because he’s given this serum that makes him everything he dreamed of, he’s not going to become the token representative of white, jock machismo and beat down. I thought it was quite brave for a mainstream movie (whilst still focusing on a straight white male superhero). If anything it was also the best display for Black Widow – not as a love or even sex interest, but as an agency of actual competence throughout. Even Falcon, as a man who cares about fellow vets but isn’t overtly fond of the military that has abandoned them, is an fascinating choice as Caps side kick (and obviously though less than subtle, it’s interesting that Cap surrounds himself with a woman and a black man, who like him are out of place and don’t possess traditional superpowers).
There’s so much wrong with the Marvel screen universe but that was a good move as the movies go (I’m commenting specifically on the filmed universe not the comics which have gone drastically either way depending on the run). It’s encouraging that the two filmmakers are taking over the Avengers franchise – as they’ve said they’d prefer to hew closer to winter soldier than past efforts.
Re:; LotRO/Hobbit movies. The problem is that Jackson wants to tell Jackson’s story, not Tolkien’s story. He just hijacked the the titles.
On the whole fighting with ancient weapons in books…I would hazard a guess that the fight sequences informed by SCA experiences (either directly or indirectly) probably read better than those without. Yes, a classic Samurai fight is going to over with the first cut, but fights involving armor (from Japanese periods that used it, or Western Europe, ditto) can last rather longer. With evenly matched, or with asymetricly matched (one has a tight defense but lousy offense and the other is reverse of that), the fight can last until one party is too exhausted to be effective.
Bojac6 @ 11
Jessica Drew will have her own Netflix marvel series (like Daredevil pitched towards a more adult audience) and Captain Marvel has a movie scheduled. Ant Man was only made because it was already on the schedule having been in development separately for years outside the main Marvel universe.
FWIW, here’s a knowledgeable description of the history of the Captain America. including the progressive roots of the character in his ’40s inception:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/10/steven-attewell-steve-rogers-isnt-just-any-hero
Auraboy @14 – The Netflix series is actually Jessica Jones. Jessica Drew eventually becomes Spider-Woman (and that might be a rights problem), while Jessica Jones was apparently created because the author wanted to use Jessica Drew, but there was another story going on with her so a sort of copy was made. That’s not to say I’m not excited for the Netflix series.
I rather prefer the New Horizons summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer, autumn, winter movie. You never really know what you’re about to see, have just seen, or what it was you saw in the past. And the suspense keeps going and growing…
antigone10 @ 10;
I think I may have failed to communicate effectively in my last post – I did not intend to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to do so, but rather that the movie at times seemed to be holding up Captain America as emblematic of an earlier, somehow ‘purer’ period of US history where everyone knew who the bad guy was (generally conveniently Johnny Foreigner, though that kind of commentary is seemingly absent from the film) and the US was somehow unambiguously on the side of the angels, unlike the modern era of the Marvel universe (which is an obvious distorted reflection of our own time) where the threat comes from within. It is that aspect of Cap as avatar of an era that I found odd, because the notion that in the 1940’s the threat came from without is such a White, male, cis/het (and frankly blinkered) viewpoint. While no one with any sense questions the evils of the Nazis, it seems to me that anyone who wasn’t a cis/het middle class White Guy could very readily have pointed to any number of pressing threats very much from within in 1940’s America.
And I absolutely agree that Agent Carter is awesome and an inspirational character who embodies all the best attributes of a heroic archetype. She is capable, resourceful, intelligent, brave, loyal and principled, and does it all in the face of the most intractable and unreasoning bigotry without becoming embittered or trading in generalities – we should all aspire to be a bit more like that, but this whole ‘growing up’ buisiness just doesn’t sound like it’s for me… ;-)
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Auraboy @ 12;
I see your point that Cap was bullied and mistreated before his transformation, and that does perhaps inform his more sympathetic and thoughtful character, but that doesn’t stop the film makers using him as a symbol of an entire earlier era (with all its many flaws, some of which are now being addressed in Agent Carter) and its values that are held up as somehow highly inspirational when the reality of the dominant social mores of the epoch really weren’t. It just struck me as odd.
I definitely agree that the treatment of both Falcon and especially Black Widow really was excellent in the movie (not wishing to spoil anything for people who haven’t watched yet, The Winter Soldier himself was also a very well handled character), with Falcon as you say having a complex relationship with the military, and Black Widow really being the joint lead in the movie, with a lot of solid character work of her own throughout and an interesting dynamic with Cap that mostly avoids love interest territory as you say and is more that of a platonic friend and almost as a mentor when it comes to Cap’s attempts to adapt to the modern world. Despite (probably, there are some fan theories out there to the contrary) not possessing any superhuman abilities or any capacities beyond extreme levels of training and physical conditioning, Black Widow more than holds her own, and steals several scenes both in terms of character development and action.
As I said in my last post, I actually very much like the Winter Soldier in most regards, with just one or two points about the symbolic significance of Cap striking me as odd. The fact is, those are really just quibbles – on balance It is very encouraging to hear that the film makers intend to take the Avengers and related franchises more in the sophisticated direction of the Winter Soldier. It would immensely improve the future promise of the Marvel cinematic universe.
antigone10 @ 10;
I think I may have failed to communicate effectively in my last post – I did not intend to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to do so, but rather that the movie at times seemed to be holding up Captain America as emblematic of an earlier, somehow ‘purer’ period of US history where everyone knew who the bad guy was (generally conveniently Johnny Foreigner, though that kind of commentary is seemingly absent from the film) and the US was somehow unambiguously on the side of the angels, unlike the modern era of the Marvel universe (which is an obvious distorted reflection of our own time) where the threat comes from within. It is that aspect of Cap as avatar of an era that I found odd, because the notion that in the 1940’s the threat came from without is such a White, male, cis/het (and frankly blinkered) viewpoint. While no one with any sense questions the evils of the Nazis, it seems to me that anyone who wasn’t a cis/het middle class White Guy could very readily have pointed to any number of pressing threats very much from within in 1940’s America.
And I absolutely agree that Agent Carter is awesome and an inspirational character who embodies all the best attributes of a heroic archetype. She is capable, resourceful, intelligent, brave, loyal and principled, and does it all in the face of the most intractable and unreasoning bigotry without becoming embittered or trading in generalities – we should all aspire to be a bit more like that, but this whole ‘growing up’ buisiness just doesn’t sound like it’s for me… ;-)
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Auraboy @ 12;
I see your point that Cap was bullied and mistreated before his transformation, and that does perhaps inform his more sympathetic and thoughtful character, but that doesn’t stop the film makers using him as a symbol of an entire earlier era (with all its many flaws, some of which are now being addressed in Agent Carter) and its values that are held up as somehow highly inspirational when the reality of the dominant social mores of the epoch really weren’t. It just struck me as odd.
I definitely agree that the treatment of both Falcon and especially Black Widow really was excellent in the movie (not wishing to spoil anything for people who haven’t watched yet, The Winter Soldier himself was also a very well handled character), with Falcon as you say having a complex relationship with the military, and Black Widow really being the joint lead in the movie, with a lot of solid character work of her own throughout and an interesting dynamic with Cap that mostly avoids love interest territory as you say and is more that of a platonic friend and almost as a mentor when it comes to Cap’s attempts to adapt to the modern world. Despite (probably, there are some fan theories out there to the contrary) not possessing any superhuman abilities or any capacities beyond extreme levels of training and physical conditioning, Black Widow more than holds her own, and steals several scenes both in terms of character development and action.
As I said in my last post, I actually very much like the Winter Soldier in most regards, with just one or two points about the symbolic significance of Cap striking me as odd. The fact is, those are really just quibbles – on balance It is very encouraging to hear that the film makers intend to take the Avengers and related franchises more in the sophisticated direction of the Winter Soldier. It would immensely improve the future promise of the Marvel cinematic universe.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Hmmm… oddly enough it seems that WordPress is eating my comments
antigone10 @ 10;
I think I may have failed to communicate effectively in my last post – I did not intend to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to do so, but rather that the movie at times seemed to be holding up Captain America as emblematic of an earlier, somehow ‘purer’ period of US history where everyone knew who the bad guy was (generally conveniently Johnny Foreigner, though that kind of commentary is seemingly absent from the film) and the US was somehow unambiguously on the side of the angels, unlike the modern era of the Marvel universe (which is an obvious distorted reflection of our own time) where the threat comes from within. It is that aspect of Cap as avatar of an era that I found odd, because the notion that in the 1940’s the threat came from without is such a White, male, cis/het (and frankly blinkered) viewpoint. While no one with any sense questions the evils of the Nazis, it seems to me that anyone who wasn’t a cis/het middle class White Guy could very readily have pointed to any number of pressing threats very much from within in 1940’s America.
And I absolutely agree that Agent Carter is awesome and an inspirational character who embodies all the best attributes of a heroic archetype. She is capable, resourceful, intelligent, brave, loyal and principled, and does it all in the face of the most intractable and unreasoning bigotry without becoming embittered or trading in generalities – we should all aspire to be a bit more like that, but this whole ‘growing up’ buisiness just doesn’t sound like it’s for me… ;-)
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Auraboy @ 12;
I see your point that Cap was bullied and mistreated before his transformation, and that does perhaps inform his more sympathetic and thoughtful character, but that doesn’t stop the film makers using him as a symbol of an entire earlier era (with all its many flaws, some of which are now being addressed in Agent Carter) and its values that are held up as somehow highly inspirational when the reality of the dominant social mores of the epoch really weren’t. It just struck me as odd.
I definitely agree that the treatment of both Falcon and especially Black Widow really was excellent in the movie (not wishing to spoil anything for people who haven’t watched yet, The Winter Soldier himself was also a very well handled character), with Falcon as you say having a complex relationship with the military, and Black Widow really being the joint lead in the movie, with a lot of solid character work of her own throughout and an interesting dynamic with Cap that mostly avoids love interest territory as you say and is more that of a platonic friend and almost as a mentor when it comes to Cap’s attempts to adapt to the modern world. Despite (probably, there are some fan theories out there to the contrary) not possessing any superhuman abilities or any capacities beyond extreme levels of training and physical conditioning, Black Widow more than holds her own, and steals several scenes both in terms of character development and action.
As I said in my last post, I actually very much like the Winter Soldier in most regards, with just one or two points about the symbolic significance of Cap striking me as odd. The fact is, those are really just quibbles – on balance It is very encouraging to hear that the film makers intend to take the Avengers and related franchises more in the sophisticated direction of the Winter Soldier. It would immensely improve the future promise of the Marvel cinematic universe.
———————————————————————————————————————————–
I am trying to post this for the third time. Why do you hate me, WordPress? What did I ever do to you?
antigone10 @ 10;
I think I may have failed to communicate effectively in my last post – I did not intend to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to do so, but rather that the movie at times seemed to be holding up Captain America as emblematic of an earlier, somehow ‘purer’ period of US history where everyone knew who the bad guy was (generally conveniently Johnny Foreigner, though that kind of commentary is seemingly absent from the film) and the US was somehow unambiguously on the side of the angels, unlike the modern era of the Marvel universe (which is an obvious distorted reflection of our own time) where the threat comes from within. It is that aspect of Cap as avatar of an era that I found odd, because the notion that in the 1940’s the threat came from without is such a White, male, cis/het (and frankly blinkered) viewpoint. While no one with any sense questions the evils of the Nazis, it seems to me that anyone who wasn’t a cis/het middle class White Guy could very readily have pointed to any number of pressing threats very much from within in 1940’s America.
And I absolutely agree that Agent Carter is awesome and an inspirational character who embodies all the best attributes of a heroic archetype. She is capable, resourceful, intelligent, brave, loyal and principled, and does it all in the face of the most intractable and unreasoning bigotry without becoming embittered or trading in generalities – we should all aspire to be a bit more like that, but this whole ‘growing up’ buisiness just doesn’t sound like it’s for me… ;-)
———————————————————————————————————————————————————–
Auraboy @ 12;
I see your point that Cap was bullied and mistreated before his transformation, and that does perhaps inform his more sympathetic and thoughtful character, but that doesn’t stop the film makers using him as a symbol of an entire earlier era (with all its many flaws, some of which are now being addressed in Agent Carter) and its values that are held up as somehow highly inspirational when the reality of the dominant social mores of the epoch really weren’t. It just struck me as odd.
I definitely agree that the treatment of both Falcon and especially Black Widow really was excellent in the movie (not wishing to spoil anything for people who haven’t watched yet, The Winter Soldier himself was also a very well handled character), with Falcon as you say having a complex relationship with the military, and Black Widow really being the joint lead in the movie, with a lot of solid character work of her own throughout and an interesting dynamic with Cap that mostly avoids love interest territory as you say and is more that of a platonic friend and almost as a mentor when it comes to Cap’s attempts to adapt to the modern world. Despite (probably, there are some fan theories out there to the contrary) not possessing any superhuman abilities or any capacities beyond extreme levels of training and physical conditioning, Black Widow more than holds her own, and steals several scenes both in terms of character development and action.
As I said in my last post, I actually very much like the Winter Soldier in most regards, with just one or two points about the symbolic significance of Cap striking me as odd. The fact is, those are really just quibbles – on balance It is very encouraging to hear that the film makers intend to take the Avengers and related franchises more in the sophisticated direction of the Winter Soldier. It would immensely improve the future promise of the Marvel cinematic universe.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Trying to post this for the fourth time. Behave WordPress, damnit…
Good points @ antigone10 and @ auraboy. I had planned a more in depth response, but it keeps getting eaten by WordPress.
I do really like Agent Carter (Peggy’s character is truly awesome), and the depiction Falcon and Black Widow in the Winter Soldier is excellent.
I didn’t care to go see The Hobbit.
You missed seeing the Epic Goblin Flume-Ride.
I nearly sprained my eyeballs, rolling them so hard. Haven’t seen the rest of the series. It takes an artist of Peter Jackson’s brilliance and creativity to so thoroughly ruin a decent book.
Marcus Ranum @19
The Best Part™ of The Hobbit was where the dwarves try to kill a fire-breathing dragon by immersing it in molten metal. Here’s a hint, Thorin & Co: breathing flames hot enough to melt gold means the critter is immune to heat hot enough to melt gold.
@Marcus Ranum- no , the Epic Goblin Flume-Ride was in the trailers.
Regarding The Slap: one of the most frustrating things is that it’s all Hank Pym is remembered for in the comic books. Once per story, someone has to bring up how Hank Pym hit his ex-wife. And to make it worse, it’s often done by someone like Reed Richards or Tony Stark, who’ve done a lot worse to their wife and girlfriends (respectively) without ever facing any sort of serious consequences.
Oh, and the other thing that never gets remembered about The Slap: Janet had actually tricked him into marrying her in the first place by taking advantage of his emotional imbalance.
@microraptor-
That makes it okay…how? That’s relevant…how?
@antigone- assuming you’re responding to my second post, Janet was at that point manipulating Hank emotionally when he struck her: she was deliberately stressing him and had been doing so for some time when he accidentally slapped her in the face, but she’s always been portrayed as if she were simply an innocent victim.
@microraptor. You are wrong. Read Avengers #213, read the whole saga. a) you don’t get to hit your spouse, no matter how much they are “deliberately stressing you” so let’s drop that whole line of wife-beating apologetics. b) READ THE FUCKING COMIC! It’s so blatantly obvious in the issue that Jan was attempting to help Pym that your statements absolutely bugger my ability to believe that you have any familiarity with the scene you are using to defend wife beating.
Marcus Ranum
I thought the second one was better. The last one was slightly worse, mainly because the story was done in movie #2 and movie #3 was basically the obligatory epic ending battle scene. For the entire movie. It might be that my expectations were so lowered after instalment 1 that the next ones seem better in comparison.
Meh, I can’t get to be too excited about it. The Hobbit is a nice adventure book for kids, nothing really more. And this coming from someone who has read LotR dozens of times and is now re-reading the Silmarillion.
Back on topic (Ant-man): I liked the movie. It was a fun movie. It seems such a simple idea, but ‘making your summer popcorn movie fun’ seems to be something forgotten by many studio’s nowadays.
I have a problem with these supposed “specialists” in ancient combat. We have very little practical evidence of how people of the time really fought. I highly doubt one hobbyist has the answers that eluded actual historians.
I haven’t seen Ant Man yet because my views of it have been entirely coloured by the Ultimate Marvel I read (on a friend’s rec. as a “dark and gritty” reboot of the Avengers). In that, it was more than a ‘slap’ in terms of domestic abuse.
Spoiler Alert:
He beats her up and sets an army of ants on her while she’s Wasp-sized and she ends up in hospital with anaphylactic shock.
Disturbing enough, but made worse by the attitudes of the other characters afterwards in which “we all knew Hank hits her, why hasn’t she left him” victim-blaming, and the fact that the whole thing was never about Wasp but Hank and Captain America.
I couldn’t believe this was *recommended* to me. Ugh (not to mention rape-y Hulk and all the other terribleness about it – Joss Whedon loved it though :-( )
Now that I have more time, and assuming that WordPress behaves itself:-
antigone10 ‘ 10;
I failed to communicate effectively in my post @ 8. I didn’t mean to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to support such rights in that era. What I found odd about the movie was the tendency to cast Cap as somehow emblematic of that era, and particularly of a version of that era that seems to owe a lot to a ‘greatest generation’ style, slightly propagandist take on America in that period . The character himself is as you say is an exemplar, but he as an individual is not the problem, and actually comes across as a rather decent progressive person. Instead, it is his role as symbolic avatar of an idealised version of the 1940s that feels off to me, and especially the curiously nostalgic outlook that in the 1940’s everyone ‘knew who the bad guys were’ (usually foreigners, which opens up a whole other issue of xenophobia), and this is juxtaposed with the Marvel universe version of modernity, where the threat comes from within and therefore trust is hard to come by.
This strikes me as odd because the attitude that the threat in the 1940’s was primarily or exclusively external is such a privileged, White, cis/het male perspective in an otherwise far more sensitive and aware movie. It seem like a varient on the old mentality among ex-cold warriors that a bipolar system is preferable to a multi-polar one because of its notional greater stability (an attitude that is mistaken because a system with two heavily armed and paranoid camps with their fingers on the nuclear trigger is hardly stable, and also just because there is a very obvious threat on everyone’s mind doesn’t mean that there aren’t any other threats, merely that they don’t get much attention paid to them).
I would consider it a certainty that if you were to talk to ethnic minority groups, women, gay people or really any marginalised group in 1940’s America they could very readily point to all manner of threats that very much came from within their own society. And while the evils of the Nazis were heinous and undeniable, and the threat they presented to innocent people was vast, the fact remains that they probably did not amount to the most immediate threat to the lives, freedoms and well being of marginalised groups in the war time United States, anymore than the USSR was the most immediate threat in the post war period. While its served its purpose in the movie’s plot line, this strangely rose tinted view of the unanimity and cohesion of US society circa 1945 still struck me as jarring and rather ahistorical.
As for Agent Carter, it is a great show, and the Peggy character really does embody everything that is admirable about heroic archetypes, being intelligent, capable, resourceful, brave, loyal and above all principled in spite of the bigotry she has to endure, and the show most certainly does nothing to play down or excuse the sexism that was common in the era. It is my favourite Marvel property at the moment.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Auraboy @ 12;
I definitely see your point about the character’s experiences of exclusion and bullying making him more empathetic and reasonable as a character, and as I noted above the character of Captain Rogers himself really isn’t problematic at all. As conventional White, cis/het, male heroes go he is definitely one of the better and more progressive ones.
I also completely agree that the depictions of Falcon and Black Widow were really top drawer. Falcon’s complex relationship with the military is very intersting, and Black Widow in particular really functions much more as a joint lead to the movie than any kind of a sidekick, having her own very strong character work and stealing several scenes both with regard to dialogue and action. Indeed, despite being without superpowers (probably – there are some fan theories to the contrary) she still more than holds her own based upon extreme physical conditioning and sublime skill. The relationship between Widow and Cap is also excellent, avoiding the obvious love interest trap to instead cast her more as platonic friend, confidant and in some ways mentor to Cap as he learns to adapt to the modern world.
It is encouraging to hear that the team behind Winter Soldier are going to have more influence within the Marvel cinematic universe. All quibbles aside, the Winter Soldier is my favourite Marvel movie to date by a country mile, and seeing more of that thoughtful sophistication and intelligence brought to the other Marvel franchises can only be a good thing
Now that I have more time, and assuming that WordPress behaves itself:-
antigone10 ‘ 10;
I failed to communicate effectively in my post @ 8. I didn’t mean to suggest that it was impossible to support women’s and minority rights in the 1940’s, or that it was specifically impossible for White men to support such rights in that era. What I found odd about the movie was the tendency to cast Cap as somehow emblematic of that era, and particularly of a version of that era that seems to owe a lot to a ‘greatest generation’ style, slightly propagandist take on America in that period . The character himself is as you say is an exemplar, but he as an individual is not the problem, and actually comes across as a rather decent progressive person. Instead, it is his role as symbolic avatar of an idealised version of the 1940s that feels off to me, and especially the curiously nostalgic outlook that in the 1940’s everyone ‘knew who the bad guys were’ (usually foreigners, which opens up a whole other issue of xenophobia), and this is juxtaposed with the Marvel universe version of modernity, where the threat comes from within and therefore trust is hard to come by.
This strikes me as odd because the attitude that the threat in the 1940’s was primarily or exclusively external is such a privileged, White, cis/het male perspective in an otherwise far more sensitive and aware movie. It seem like a varient on the old mentality among ex-cold warriors that a bipolar system is preferable to a multi-polar one because of its notional greater stability (an attitude that is mistaken because a system with two heavily armed and paranoid camps with their fingers on the nuclear trigger is hardly stable, and also just because there is a very obvious threat on everyone’s mind doesn’t mean that there aren’t any other threats, merely that they don’t get much attention paid to them).
I would consider it a certainty that if you were to talk to ethnic minority groups, women, gay people or really any marginalised group in 1940’s America they could very readily point to all manner of threats that very much came from within their own society. And while the evils of the Nazis were heinous and undeniable, and the threat they presented to innocent people was vast, the fact remains that they probably did not amount to the most immediate threat to the lives, freedoms and well being of marginalised groups in the war time United States, anymore than the USSR was the most immediate threat in the post war period. While its served its purpose in the movie’s plot line, this strangely rose tinted view of the unanimity and cohesion of US society circa 1945 still struck me as jarring and rather ahistorical.
As for Agent Carter, it is a great show, and the Peggy character really does embody everything that is admirable about heroic archetypes, being intelligent, capable, resourceful, brave, loyal and above all principled in spite of the bigotry she has to endure, and the show most certainly does nothing to play down or excuse the sexism that was common in the era. It is my favourite Marvel property at the moment.
So far so good. Don’t fail me now, WordPress…
Auraboy @ 12;
I definitely see your point about the character’s experiences of exclusion and bullying making him more empathetic and reasonable as a character, and as I noted above the character of Captain Rogers himself really isn’t problematic at all. As conventional White, cis/het, male heroes go he is definitely one of the better and more progressive ones.
I also completely agree that the depictions of Falcon and Black Widow were really top drawer. Falcon’s complex relationship with the military is very intersting, and Black Widow in particular really functions much more as a joint lead to the movie than any kind of a sidekick, having her own very strong character work and stealing several scenes both with regard to dialogue and action. Indeed, despite being without superpowers (probably – there are some fan theories to the contrary) she still more than holds her own based upon extreme physical conditioning and sublime skill. The relationship between Widow and Cap is also excellent, avoiding the obvious love interest trap to instead cast her more as platonic friend, confidant and in some ways mentor to Cap as he learns to adapt to the modern world.
It is encouraging to hear that the team behind Winter Soldier are going to have more influence within the Marvel cinematic universe. All quibbles aside, the Winter Soldier is my favourite Marvel movie to date by a country mile, and seeing more of that thoughtful sophistication and intelligence brought to the other Marvel franchises can only be a good thing.
I am SO happy that he gave one of my favorite films a big thumbs-up, Ridley Scott’s The Duellists. The Fight Director was William Hobbs; check his other credits on IMDB.
Why this movie isn’t on everyone’s Top Whatever list I simply do not understand. Based on a rattling good true story, exquisitely photographed, with a very satisfying conclusion, it’s in my Top Five, one of the very few movies that I can watch again and again. It was made on a shoestring budget of less than a million bucks in 1977, and every penny is up on the screen. Rent it, buy it, whatever you have to do, but see it. I was thrilled to be able to personally thank Keith Carradine for his part in making it a couple of years ago, and to have him sign the DVD case.
Pieter @36:
That is a beautiful film. Wouldn’t pay to make something like that these days.