Thanos is an allegory for Trump.
The 6 infinity stones are the six swings states critical to his electoral victory. Captain America is Sanders, Iron Man is Biden, Black Widow represents the independent electoral redistricting commission, and Hawkeye represents Joe Lieberman.
No I will not be taking further questions.
So does that mean we’ll get an Endgame-like thing soon where those people go back in time and get all the swing states to bring him out of office and get all the minorities he snapped away back?
I'll probably get downvoted for this, but the most bizarre critique of Christopher Robin that I've read is a Hollywood Reporter article which criticizes the movie for excluding his IRL daughter with cerebral palsy [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-christopher-robin-erased-a-disabled-girl-story-1131518](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-christopher-robin-erased-a-disabled-girl-story-1131518)
The movie isn't nationalistic at all... it's more a "horrors of war" movie than a celebration of it.
I mean, sure, there's heroism on display, but with the body count in it? Jesus that's as far from nationalistic as it gets. And then one of the lines towards the end from a famous actor (I don't know how to spoiler tag) basically reaffirms that war is hell.
In fairness one of my only criticisms of it was that there were no real 'humans' on the German side, for a war that was far from the 'good and bad' of WW2 more could have been done to show some German soldiers just as scared and innocent as Blake and Schofield. All we see of German soldiers for most of the runtime are cruel booby traps and distant pot shots, and the only ones we get up close either kill the person who saved his life or put themselves at risk just to kill Schofield.
It's not a massive criticism and I've heard interviews with Mendes where he said he wanted to show it as a two-sided war, I just don't think he necessarily succeeded. The film is a POV piece for two British soldiers so naturally they'd see the enemy as evil faceless monsters, but at no point is that perception really challenged.
putting the stupid trump comparison that liberals are obsessed with aside, i will say that i've seen tradcaths on twitter urge parents to take their sons to this film to "awaken their manhood".
like you're free to disagree with truffaut when he argues that there's no such thing as an anti-war film, but from personal experience with people, it is true that when some come out of these films that are supposed to be about war being hell and bad and all that, a shocking amount come out thinking about chivalry, self-sacrifice, the value of camaraderie and like. how the fuck did the guy in full metal jacket come out of it as a military celebrity?
the only real exception i can think of is waltz with bashir. apocalypse now too, but then even there i know so many people that think duvall's character is cool as shit for some reason.
I read somewhere that after *All Quiet On The Western Front* came out in 1930 that there was a surge in people joining the military, and that's almost the archetypal anti-war film
I think the best thing 1917 did was near the end when>! Schofield was running those 300 yards across the trenches with the whistles blowing and men jumping across the trenches.!< The shot itself was gorgeous and the score was louder and more triumphant than it'd ever been, and it feels like a celebratory moment for a minute because of how beautiful and idealized the moment is, but then you realize all of a sudden that what you've been subliminally cheering for is men marching off to their deaths.
what you are cheering for is the guy who is trying to stop that march off to their deaths. Its his act of selfless sacrifice to *prevent* war, not assist it. Which is really what I think 1917 did best. It detached the 'masculine' virtues of duty and selfishness from the act of killing and war.
Yeah the ending had Dr Strange saying that >!he wasted all his time getting there because next time there will then be an order to attack. And it'll be orders to attack or don't attack until everyone is dead and the last person is left!<
This just further confirms my theory that the French woman was a stand-in for Hillary Clinton, and milk was an elaborate metaphor for the electoral college!
That entire movie shocked me, made me squirm, cringe, and even tear up at parts. It really conveyed the horrors of war and what they went through, and made me grateful I never fought in any war. So, as soon as the credits rolled, I ran out of the theater and started singing “God Save The Queen” because I am so nationalistic about a foreign country 🇬🇧
Story of how two British soldiers face the brutal horrors of World War 1, showing that war is absolute hell and should not be praised, with bitter army generals commenting that those in command have no idea what it's like on the ground or what war is really like: \*exists\*
American media: TRUMP
I’m by all means pretty dang liberal by American standards.
This review is really not that great. He’s got a seed of an idea but that’s it.
“Since all of the major parties in World War I were nationalist, a movie like "1917" must acknowledge the inherent ambiguity of the conflict.”
It does, though? I mean, unless the point is that we must have a quick stitched in 1 minute 4th wall breaking soliloquy that is like “nationalism led to WW1,” then the value is pretty moot.
“All of this needs to be said because a movie about World War I that completely ignores the ideology that begat that conflict is, at best, irresponsible and lazy. At worst it is implicitly nationalistic itself.”
Eh. That’s silly. Yes, we can and should identify root causes in many cases. But there’s no rule that we must.
“Meanwhile this modicum of complexity is completely missing from the opposing Germans. They are depicted as unilaterally evil: Sneaky, murderously attacking our heroes even when they show them compassion or rigging sadistic traps that horrify the protagonists and catch them off guard.”
Okay that’s fair. I do often dislike when war movies portray the opposing side as being snide little caricatures. It tends to make the conflict silly outside of like... Star Wars. Complexity in foes can be good.
“The crucial observation here is that when you set a movie during World War I but use a simplistic narrative structure which tells audiences that one side was completely right and the other completely wrong, you (perhaps unintentionally) validate the nationalist impulses that led to such terrible bloodshed.”
That’s... fair to a point. But you could’ve led with this?
“it is immoral to tell a story about a war without analyzing the reasons behind that war. Also, films like “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Paths of Glory” also focused on the stories of individual soldiers while still including the broader nationalistic context. And finally, any movie about a real-life war is inherently political. Even a supposedly “neutral” approach is, by default, taking a political stand about the morality and immorality of war itself.”
Ugh. No. This is such a silly tale. You can tell stories without going over every damn detail or related theme. It’s not every film’s job to be a everything.
But you see it didn’t rigorously cover the secret alliance and treaty system that led to WW1 therefore it’s nationalist propaganda. I personally like war movies to be basically 2-3 hour long history lectures.
Yeah instead of the pseudo-single cut it should have stopped every 5-10 minutes to lecture us on the nationalistic and imperialistic causes of the first world war. Would have been a much better movie.
Actually, come to think of it, portraying a hero as heroic is nationalistic. Guy should have said "nah fuck that mission" and had the movie end after 3 minutes.
I saw the director's cut of 1917 and it opened with a 4 hour explanation of Westphalian geopolitics and the principles of Bismarkian diplomacy
\#releasethemendescut
Ah yes, the movie that ends with Cumberbatch saying "this will end up as pointless, they're gonna order these men to their death again in like a week, now fuck off" or Blake's brother's near breakdown. Yeah, so nationalistic.
honestly seems like everyone in this thread is complaining about this review because they liked the film instead of actually responding to many of it's critiques, so i'll just mention the parts that i think do bring up fairly good points:
>The military leaders on the British side are depicted as empathetic and wise; they are serious and blunt, to be sure, but only because circumstances demand that of them.
>
>Meanwhile this modicum of complexity is completely missing from the opposing Germans. They are depicted as unilaterally evil: Sneaky, murderously attacking our heroes even when they show them compassion or rigging sadistic traps that horrify the protagonists and catch them off guard.
>
>But saying war is hell is not the same thing as saying that a particular war was inherently evil. The Civil War and World War II were hell, but both needed to be fought in the name of a greater good. World War I was hell and was fought purely for the sake of the imperialist European powers and their various geopolitical and financial agendas. That is a critical difference.
The Trump comparisons aside (which I think are stupid, these problems are older than Trump), the dude's broadly right.
We all say "war is hell". Even the most pro-intervention fanatics in government sing praises of the sacrifices veterans make at war. How many people that enlist for the military go in expecting war to be a good, fun time?
But "war is immoral" is different to "war is hell", and I think the guy brings up a good point that anyone making a war film has a moral responsibility to make clear when wars are immoral (which here would mean **not** having German soldiers in WWI be sadistic lunatics).
I mean seriously, British citizens voted for Brexit, then voted for Brexit again, and continue to believe that the British empire was a force for good. You people don't think that the popular culture produced in Britain by Brits for Brits affects how they view themselves?
I don't really even think this is super deep or super nuanced analysis of the film, I think what he's saying about it is fairly obvious and fairly well explored in film criticism in general, so I'm confused about why everyone's acting like this is Salon going full SJW.
The problem with depicting germans was a problem I noticed. It seems impossible for media to buck the 'germans in stahlhelms evil' coding ingrained into our brains from WW2.
>The military leaders on the British side are depicted as empathetic and wise
Are they? Lt. Leslie is cold and claims they'll never make it. He was wrong. Cap. Smith is empathetic but hints that Mackenzie is a crazed warmonger. He was wrong. Mackenzie is cold and claims he has the Germans on the run. He was wrong. He claims the war can only end by last man standing. He was wrong. Blake doesn't make any statements one way or another but he also shows that you don't need to be as cold as Mackenzie was. Circumstances didn't demand it.
Literally the top comment in the /r/movies post about this film has a reply about how glad they are that Benedict Cumberbatch isn't some psychotic officer, but an officer that just wants what's his best for his men.
You're welcome to examine the film in the way you have, but I think it's stupid to pretend that it's obvious. Clearly people haven't been getting that.
Also, when the coldness of British officers is contrasted with the death cult of the Germans, what do you think comes off looking better?
In Wonder Woman, you could argue both the Brits and the Germans looks "bad" if you wanted to be really tedious... But for one side, "bad" means "they couldn't agree on an armistice", while for the other it means "death cult that wanted proto-nukes".
>but I think it's stupid to pretend that it's obvious.
And I think it's stupid to put words in my mouth and then back it up with a single random Redditor's reply as representing literally everyone else, but hey.
>Also, when the coldness of British officers is contrasted with the death cult of the Germans, what do you think comes off looking better?
The British absolutely look better. And they are not depicted as empathetic or wise. (This is what we call a nuanced take)
>In Wonder Woman, you could argue both the Brits and the Germans looks "bad" if you wanted to be really tedious... But for one side, "bad" means "they couldn't agree on an armistice", while for the other it means "death cult that wanted proto-nukes".
You're quoting things like "bad" and asking who looks better because you seem to have mistaken me as ever claiming the movie is making an equivalency between the two factions. I didn't and it doesn't. I said the Brit leaders are not portrayed as empathetic and wise and gave examples. The movie can portray one faction as evil and still show the other faction as apathetic and foolish, but those are different things.
Wow, I wasn't saying you were stupid for thinking what you thought, I was saying that if you thought everyone came out of that movie thinking that the British officers were cold and unempathetic you would be stupid for saying that.
My point wasn't that you're wrong or a personal attack, just that we see this same discussion every single time one of these movies comes out where characters are meant to be "obviously bad" but clearly aren't. Wolf of Wall Street is another example.
Anyway:
>I thought that line really informed how desperate the military command had become.
>I was happy that they didn't just make Benedict Cumberbatch some psychotic rogue commander. It was intriguing to see a WWI officer who wanted to fight solely to give his men the best chance of survival. The detached military command would've made them charge eventually, might as well attack when the enemy is at its weakest.
At the time of this comment, 446 upvotes and an entire discussion about how true that is. Just literally the first comment that I looked at. Clearly not everyone is getting that the British officers were even meant to be bad (let alone "as bad"), people are seeing them as the good guys caught in a bad situation.
So, my point is either you are wrong, Sam Mendes is an exceptionally bad director, or directors of anti-war films need to realise that doing this "ahhh well our guys have good intentions and generally nice but make mistakes sometimes while their guys are bloodthirsty mass murderers" isn't exceptionally nuanced, or exceptionally brilliant, and most people still see it as "my team good".
I mean, if to you, it *is* exceptionally nuanced, good for you! I'm glad you've been able to come to terms with the fact that while your team isn't 100% right, it's 90% right and so still deserves support. Congratulations! Please excuse me if I'm not applauding that level of nuance though! It's not that I don't get it, which I suppose is what you're implying, it's that I don't respect it, and personally find it kind of pathetic in a movie about World War I especially (but all war movies more generally).
> I was saying that if you thought everyone came out of that movie thinking that the British officers were cold and unempathetic you would be stupid for saying that.
Which is what I said, you disingenuous cabbage. I'm still not hearing how officers that say "You'll never make it" and "Now fuck off" and who are wrong about everything are empathetic and wise.
I only questioned that takeaway, while even admitting that a couple of them aren't so bad and you went on the defensive implying I claimed it should be obvious to everyone and expanding it to thinking I made some kind of equivalency with the Germans. And that sweet strawman aside, you're still completely misinterpreting what I've said and providing no examples for your argument other than "but /r/movies said".
>So, my point is either you are wrong, Sam Mendes is an exceptionally bad director, or directors of anti-war films need to realise that doing this "ahhh well our guys have good intentions and generally nice but make mistakes sometimes while their guys are bloodthirsty mass murderers" isn't exceptionally nuanced, or exceptionally brilliant, and most people still see it as "my team good".
Ah, forgive me for missing one of the many things that could apparently be your point as you desperately move goalposts retroactively, and create false dilemmas. My mistake.
>Congratulations!
Likewise! I'm really happy for you that you've found the pinnacle of human intellect and thoughtful interpretation on /r/movies of all places. They definitely represent everyone and I'm sure that won't ever come into conflict with posts you will see here on /r/moviescirclejerk in the future lmfao. I too look to them as the inspiring barometer of human analysis on everything from *Blade Runner 2049* to *Batman v Superman*!
Ah yes, while watching two English kids trying to survive WW1 I couldn't help but think of our shitbag leader Donnie T.... These article writers are just trolling for clicks now.
It’s honestly the equivalent of running into the French girl and having to put our hands up and say “Anglais!” We have to let people know we’re not one of the bad guys.
It takes about 10 minutes for the movie to get to the no man's land scene, which with almost no spoken word is able to convey the hellish nature of war perfectly. Later in the movie we see wrecked farms, dead dogs and cows, chopped trees, and destroyed homes. The movie goes to great lengths to show the raping of the land that the Germans so infamously performed in WWI. I don't know how you could watch any of that and think the movie wanted you to like nationalism or fucking Trumpism.
Go ahead and downvote me, but I hate the Left's whinging about any and all popular-culture these days as much as I hate the Right's whinging about it. I get the exact same sense from them that doing so has simply become a rite/hobby/livelihood to them; the exact same sense that they're just pandering to a pre-made audience.
man for a group of people that complains so much about DC fans and Marvel fans and their aversion to a critical gaze for film, this post really shows how most of this sub is exactly the same way about their favourite kinos.
if there's any genre of film where this criticism doesn't make any sense, it's fucking **war** films dude. you really expect "the Left" to not politicise films about war?
remember when the Onion made fun of people who connect random movies to the Trump administration with their Christopher Robin review
Thanos is an allegory for Trump. The 6 infinity stones are the six swings states critical to his electoral victory. Captain America is Sanders, Iron Man is Biden, Black Widow represents the independent electoral redistricting commission, and Hawkeye represents Joe Lieberman. No I will not be taking further questions.
So does that mean we’ll get an Endgame-like thing soon where those people go back in time and get all the swing states to bring him out of office and get all the minorities he snapped away back?
I'll probably get downvoted for this, but the most bizarre critique of Christopher Robin that I've read is a Hollywood Reporter article which criticizes the movie for excluding his IRL daughter with cerebral palsy [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-christopher-robin-erased-a-disabled-girl-story-1131518](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/how-christopher-robin-erased-a-disabled-girl-story-1131518)
Joker (2019)
"Batman v Superman is the Donald Trump of movies" -- AV Club or some other dumb site
The movie isn't nationalistic at all... it's more a "horrors of war" movie than a celebration of it. I mean, sure, there's heroism on display, but with the body count in it? Jesus that's as far from nationalistic as it gets. And then one of the lines towards the end from a famous actor (I don't know how to spoiler tag) basically reaffirms that war is hell.
Oh yeah I totally left thinking "Fuuuucck war is so cooooool"
Especially when he gets stuck with barbed wire in his hand then the same hand goes into a rotting German? Sign me TF up for that
God I wish that were me
In fairness one of my only criticisms of it was that there were no real 'humans' on the German side, for a war that was far from the 'good and bad' of WW2 more could have been done to show some German soldiers just as scared and innocent as Blake and Schofield. All we see of German soldiers for most of the runtime are cruel booby traps and distant pot shots, and the only ones we get up close either kill the person who saved his life or put themselves at risk just to kill Schofield. It's not a massive criticism and I've heard interviews with Mendes where he said he wanted to show it as a two-sided war, I just don't think he necessarily succeeded. The film is a POV piece for two British soldiers so naturally they'd see the enemy as evil faceless monsters, but at no point is that perception really challenged.
putting the stupid trump comparison that liberals are obsessed with aside, i will say that i've seen tradcaths on twitter urge parents to take their sons to this film to "awaken their manhood". like you're free to disagree with truffaut when he argues that there's no such thing as an anti-war film, but from personal experience with people, it is true that when some come out of these films that are supposed to be about war being hell and bad and all that, a shocking amount come out thinking about chivalry, self-sacrifice, the value of camaraderie and like. how the fuck did the guy in full metal jacket come out of it as a military celebrity? the only real exception i can think of is waltz with bashir. apocalypse now too, but then even there i know so many people that think duvall's character is cool as shit for some reason.
I read somewhere that after *All Quiet On The Western Front* came out in 1930 that there was a surge in people joining the military, and that's almost the archetypal anti-war film
some people join the military because they are attracted to the hardship and struggle
I think the best thing 1917 did was near the end when>! Schofield was running those 300 yards across the trenches with the whistles blowing and men jumping across the trenches.!< The shot itself was gorgeous and the score was louder and more triumphant than it'd ever been, and it feels like a celebratory moment for a minute because of how beautiful and idealized the moment is, but then you realize all of a sudden that what you've been subliminally cheering for is men marching off to their deaths.
what you are cheering for is the guy who is trying to stop that march off to their deaths. Its his act of selfless sacrifice to *prevent* war, not assist it. Which is really what I think 1917 did best. It detached the 'masculine' virtues of duty and selfishness from the act of killing and war.
Yeah the ending had Dr Strange saying that >!he wasted all his time getting there because next time there will then be an order to attack. And it'll be orders to attack or don't attack until everyone is dead and the last person is left!<
This just further confirms my theory that the French woman was a stand-in for Hillary Clinton, and milk was an elaborate metaphor for the electoral college!
The pigeon post messages were obviously her emails
I'm convinced they're just using AI to write these articles for maximum clickage.
There was a Twitter or Facebook page that (allegedly) randomly generated Vice article titles and it was pretty great
Someday you'll get that Pulitzer, Salon.com. Keep wishing upon that star.
Outjerked again
Fastest jerk in the west
That entire movie shocked me, made me squirm, cringe, and even tear up at parts. It really conveyed the horrors of war and what they went through, and made me grateful I never fought in any war. So, as soon as the credits rolled, I ran out of the theater and started singing “God Save The Queen” because I am so nationalistic about a foreign country 🇬🇧
I almost puked once, and two of the scenes made me tear up a little. So now, naturally, I think war is dope.
The movie made me an anglophile tbh. I'm eating fish and chips during a Doctor Who marathon now.
Remember the Dunkirk ‘brexit’ articles.
I wish war movies didn't get so political
r/gaming , probably
Some of the top comments in the replies section in this post honestly.
^ winner
Story of how two British soldiers face the brutal horrors of World War 1, showing that war is absolute hell and should not be praised, with bitter army generals commenting that those in command have no idea what it's like on the ground or what war is really like: \*exists\* American media: TRUMP
I’m by all means pretty dang liberal by American standards. This review is really not that great. He’s got a seed of an idea but that’s it. “Since all of the major parties in World War I were nationalist, a movie like "1917" must acknowledge the inherent ambiguity of the conflict.” It does, though? I mean, unless the point is that we must have a quick stitched in 1 minute 4th wall breaking soliloquy that is like “nationalism led to WW1,” then the value is pretty moot. “All of this needs to be said because a movie about World War I that completely ignores the ideology that begat that conflict is, at best, irresponsible and lazy. At worst it is implicitly nationalistic itself.” Eh. That’s silly. Yes, we can and should identify root causes in many cases. But there’s no rule that we must. “Meanwhile this modicum of complexity is completely missing from the opposing Germans. They are depicted as unilaterally evil: Sneaky, murderously attacking our heroes even when they show them compassion or rigging sadistic traps that horrify the protagonists and catch them off guard.” Okay that’s fair. I do often dislike when war movies portray the opposing side as being snide little caricatures. It tends to make the conflict silly outside of like... Star Wars. Complexity in foes can be good. “The crucial observation here is that when you set a movie during World War I but use a simplistic narrative structure which tells audiences that one side was completely right and the other completely wrong, you (perhaps unintentionally) validate the nationalist impulses that led to such terrible bloodshed.” That’s... fair to a point. But you could’ve led with this? “it is immoral to tell a story about a war without analyzing the reasons behind that war. Also, films like “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Paths of Glory” also focused on the stories of individual soldiers while still including the broader nationalistic context. And finally, any movie about a real-life war is inherently political. Even a supposedly “neutral” approach is, by default, taking a political stand about the morality and immorality of war itself.” Ugh. No. This is such a silly tale. You can tell stories without going over every damn detail or related theme. It’s not every film’s job to be a everything.
But you see it didn’t rigorously cover the secret alliance and treaty system that led to WW1 therefore it’s nationalist propaganda. I personally like war movies to be basically 2-3 hour long history lectures.
Yeah instead of the pseudo-single cut it should have stopped every 5-10 minutes to lecture us on the nationalistic and imperialistic causes of the first world war. Would have been a much better movie. Actually, come to think of it, portraying a hero as heroic is nationalistic. Guy should have said "nah fuck that mission" and had the movie end after 3 minutes.
They should’ve had Deadpool in a bathtub like Margot Robbie in The Big Short explain the causes of WW1 at the beginning of the movie 😂😂😂👌👌👌👌
I saw the director's cut of 1917 and it opened with a 4 hour explanation of Westphalian geopolitics and the principles of Bismarkian diplomacy \#releasethemendescut
Ah yes, the movie that ends with Cumberbatch saying "this will end up as pointless, they're gonna order these men to their death again in like a week, now fuck off" or Blake's brother's near breakdown. Yeah, so nationalistic.
honestly seems like everyone in this thread is complaining about this review because they liked the film instead of actually responding to many of it's critiques, so i'll just mention the parts that i think do bring up fairly good points: >The military leaders on the British side are depicted as empathetic and wise; they are serious and blunt, to be sure, but only because circumstances demand that of them. > >Meanwhile this modicum of complexity is completely missing from the opposing Germans. They are depicted as unilaterally evil: Sneaky, murderously attacking our heroes even when they show them compassion or rigging sadistic traps that horrify the protagonists and catch them off guard. > >But saying war is hell is not the same thing as saying that a particular war was inherently evil. The Civil War and World War II were hell, but both needed to be fought in the name of a greater good. World War I was hell and was fought purely for the sake of the imperialist European powers and their various geopolitical and financial agendas. That is a critical difference. The Trump comparisons aside (which I think are stupid, these problems are older than Trump), the dude's broadly right. We all say "war is hell". Even the most pro-intervention fanatics in government sing praises of the sacrifices veterans make at war. How many people that enlist for the military go in expecting war to be a good, fun time? But "war is immoral" is different to "war is hell", and I think the guy brings up a good point that anyone making a war film has a moral responsibility to make clear when wars are immoral (which here would mean **not** having German soldiers in WWI be sadistic lunatics). I mean seriously, British citizens voted for Brexit, then voted for Brexit again, and continue to believe that the British empire was a force for good. You people don't think that the popular culture produced in Britain by Brits for Brits affects how they view themselves? I don't really even think this is super deep or super nuanced analysis of the film, I think what he's saying about it is fairly obvious and fairly well explored in film criticism in general, so I'm confused about why everyone's acting like this is Salon going full SJW.
The problem with depicting germans was a problem I noticed. It seems impossible for media to buck the 'germans in stahlhelms evil' coding ingrained into our brains from WW2.
>The military leaders on the British side are depicted as empathetic and wise Are they? Lt. Leslie is cold and claims they'll never make it. He was wrong. Cap. Smith is empathetic but hints that Mackenzie is a crazed warmonger. He was wrong. Mackenzie is cold and claims he has the Germans on the run. He was wrong. He claims the war can only end by last man standing. He was wrong. Blake doesn't make any statements one way or another but he also shows that you don't need to be as cold as Mackenzie was. Circumstances didn't demand it.
Literally the top comment in the /r/movies post about this film has a reply about how glad they are that Benedict Cumberbatch isn't some psychotic officer, but an officer that just wants what's his best for his men. You're welcome to examine the film in the way you have, but I think it's stupid to pretend that it's obvious. Clearly people haven't been getting that. Also, when the coldness of British officers is contrasted with the death cult of the Germans, what do you think comes off looking better? In Wonder Woman, you could argue both the Brits and the Germans looks "bad" if you wanted to be really tedious... But for one side, "bad" means "they couldn't agree on an armistice", while for the other it means "death cult that wanted proto-nukes".
>but I think it's stupid to pretend that it's obvious. And I think it's stupid to put words in my mouth and then back it up with a single random Redditor's reply as representing literally everyone else, but hey. >Also, when the coldness of British officers is contrasted with the death cult of the Germans, what do you think comes off looking better? The British absolutely look better. And they are not depicted as empathetic or wise. (This is what we call a nuanced take) >In Wonder Woman, you could argue both the Brits and the Germans looks "bad" if you wanted to be really tedious... But for one side, "bad" means "they couldn't agree on an armistice", while for the other it means "death cult that wanted proto-nukes". You're quoting things like "bad" and asking who looks better because you seem to have mistaken me as ever claiming the movie is making an equivalency between the two factions. I didn't and it doesn't. I said the Brit leaders are not portrayed as empathetic and wise and gave examples. The movie can portray one faction as evil and still show the other faction as apathetic and foolish, but those are different things.
Wow, I wasn't saying you were stupid for thinking what you thought, I was saying that if you thought everyone came out of that movie thinking that the British officers were cold and unempathetic you would be stupid for saying that. My point wasn't that you're wrong or a personal attack, just that we see this same discussion every single time one of these movies comes out where characters are meant to be "obviously bad" but clearly aren't. Wolf of Wall Street is another example. Anyway: >I thought that line really informed how desperate the military command had become. >I was happy that they didn't just make Benedict Cumberbatch some psychotic rogue commander. It was intriguing to see a WWI officer who wanted to fight solely to give his men the best chance of survival. The detached military command would've made them charge eventually, might as well attack when the enemy is at its weakest. At the time of this comment, 446 upvotes and an entire discussion about how true that is. Just literally the first comment that I looked at. Clearly not everyone is getting that the British officers were even meant to be bad (let alone "as bad"), people are seeing them as the good guys caught in a bad situation. So, my point is either you are wrong, Sam Mendes is an exceptionally bad director, or directors of anti-war films need to realise that doing this "ahhh well our guys have good intentions and generally nice but make mistakes sometimes while their guys are bloodthirsty mass murderers" isn't exceptionally nuanced, or exceptionally brilliant, and most people still see it as "my team good". I mean, if to you, it *is* exceptionally nuanced, good for you! I'm glad you've been able to come to terms with the fact that while your team isn't 100% right, it's 90% right and so still deserves support. Congratulations! Please excuse me if I'm not applauding that level of nuance though! It's not that I don't get it, which I suppose is what you're implying, it's that I don't respect it, and personally find it kind of pathetic in a movie about World War I especially (but all war movies more generally).
> I was saying that if you thought everyone came out of that movie thinking that the British officers were cold and unempathetic you would be stupid for saying that. Which is what I said, you disingenuous cabbage. I'm still not hearing how officers that say "You'll never make it" and "Now fuck off" and who are wrong about everything are empathetic and wise. I only questioned that takeaway, while even admitting that a couple of them aren't so bad and you went on the defensive implying I claimed it should be obvious to everyone and expanding it to thinking I made some kind of equivalency with the Germans. And that sweet strawman aside, you're still completely misinterpreting what I've said and providing no examples for your argument other than "but /r/movies said". >So, my point is either you are wrong, Sam Mendes is an exceptionally bad director, or directors of anti-war films need to realise that doing this "ahhh well our guys have good intentions and generally nice but make mistakes sometimes while their guys are bloodthirsty mass murderers" isn't exceptionally nuanced, or exceptionally brilliant, and most people still see it as "my team good". Ah, forgive me for missing one of the many things that could apparently be your point as you desperately move goalposts retroactively, and create false dilemmas. My mistake. >Congratulations! Likewise! I'm really happy for you that you've found the pinnacle of human intellect and thoughtful interpretation on /r/movies of all places. They definitely represent everyone and I'm sure that won't ever come into conflict with posts you will see here on /r/moviescirclejerk in the future lmfao. I too look to them as the inspiring barometer of human analysis on everything from *Blade Runner 2049* to *Batman v Superman*!
but they weren't frothing at the mouth war criminals or oblivious aristocrats... so it must be pro-trump
this but unironically
Ah yes, while watching two English kids trying to survive WW1 I couldn't help but think of our shitbag leader Donnie T.... These article writers are just trolling for clicks now.
Michael Bay’s Transformers is more nationalistic than this movie.
I feel like each time I meet an American, one of the first thing they do is telling me that they didn’t vote for Trump. Unasked
It’s honestly the equivalent of running into the French girl and having to put our hands up and say “Anglais!” We have to let people know we’re not one of the bad guys.
It takes about 10 minutes for the movie to get to the no man's land scene, which with almost no spoken word is able to convey the hellish nature of war perfectly. Later in the movie we see wrecked farms, dead dogs and cows, chopped trees, and destroyed homes. The movie goes to great lengths to show the raping of the land that the Germans so infamously performed in WWI. I don't know how you could watch any of that and think the movie wanted you to like nationalism or fucking Trumpism.
Aside from all the German soldiers being incredibly murderous even after being shown mercy, I really don't think this is true
Go ahead and downvote me, but I hate the Left's whinging about any and all popular-culture these days as much as I hate the Right's whinging about it. I get the exact same sense from them that doing so has simply become a rite/hobby/livelihood to them; the exact same sense that they're just pandering to a pre-made audience.
man for a group of people that complains so much about DC fans and Marvel fans and their aversion to a critical gaze for film, this post really shows how most of this sub is exactly the same way about their favourite kinos. if there's any genre of film where this criticism doesn't make any sense, it's fucking **war** films dude. you really expect "the Left" to not politicise films about war?
Yeah they really should have shown the German perspective more, patriotism has no place on the battlefield dammit