Superhero Obsession

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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sy Borg wrote: August 18th, 2022, 8:49 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 18th, 2022, 9:56 amI much prefer heroes who stay within human limits.
Yes, I like movies where, if a person falls from a great height, they die, or if they fall from a moderate height, they would be hurt, as in early Star Trek. The worst offender was the Wachowski's Jupiter Ascending, which should have been called Jupiter Descending because the titular charcter spent half the movie falling from insane heights. Worse, if you are falling in an artificial city inside Jupiter, then you are moving at about 400m/s, which is about 1,400kph. So, when she throws out a hand to grasp a metal railing at that speed, just imagine what would happen to your arm if a metal bar flying through the air hit it at greater than the speed of sound.

Another gripe. When characters see something terrifying, most won't respond like machines and fearlessly leap into action, but freeze in shock (there was a great example of this in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, regardless of its silliness at times).

I enjoyed Todd Phillips's Joker, with Joaquin Phoenix in scintillating form. I suppose it wasn't really a superhero movie, just loosely set in the Marvel Universe. Then again, I enjoyed Infinity Wars, where every single character was overpowered.

There's not much respect for physics and biology in modern movies, which perhaps reflects the US's growing tendency to embrace superstition, with an associated desire to escape physical reality.
Indeed, yes.
I loved Phoenix's Joker. It asked what would life really be like for a person who dressed up as a clown. It matched gritty reality with a fantastic idea. As a result it was a film that had something to say about how we live our lives. By comparison superhero films are just fluff.

I'm a life long sci-fi fan. And though I love Star Trek I always wished that they would at least acknowledge the hostility of space and the realities of gravity once in a while.
How many times have you seen a character trapped under a bulkhead on a spaceship? They end up having to call Data to lift the weight. Why not just switch off the bloody artificial gravity generator? Because it is obvious that they must have it, else they would all be in free fall when in orbit. I also hat the way they beam down in their dress uniforms paying no heed to local atmospheric and meteorological conditions. I realis that is was done for budgetary reasons back in the day - but surely someone might have "got real" for NextGen?
All this stuff would make it all more interesting. But as a result all planets visited just seem so bland and anodyne; which is a shame since ST has the best stories.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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... And , dare I say it, George Challenger, and Allan Quartermain.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:11 amI'm a life long sci-fi fan. And though I love Star Trek I always wished that they would at least acknowledge the hostility of space and the realities of gravity once in a while.
How many times have you seen a character trapped under a bulkhead on a spaceship? They end up having to call Data to lift the weight. Why not just switch off the bloody artificial gravity generator? Because it is obvious that they must have it, else they would all be in free fall when in orbit. I also hat the way they beam down in their dress uniforms paying no heed to local atmospheric and meteorological conditions. I realis that is was done for budgetary reasons back in the day - but surely someone might have "got real" for NextGen?
All this stuff would make it all more interesting. But as a result all planets visited just seem so bland and anodyne; which is a shame since ST has the best stories.
God yeah! Star Trek somehow managed to be sophisticated and idiotic all at once. If he wanted to, William Shatner could have been another Leslie Nielsen. In a way, he already was :)

Imagine casually landing on another world in lightweight military gear - the place has Earthlike gravity, radiation, air pressure, temperature, atmospheric gases and the only hostile biology are usually funny-looking humans or grunting humanoids. Every now and then someone would catch a space disease and have to deal with radiation. To be fair, when Crusher and Picard fell into a hole, at least one of them was appropriately hurt.
Still, there was no budget excuse decades later in Ridley-Scott's Prometheus, where a biologist on an alien planet tries to pat an obviously hostile vagina-faced cobralike creature, as if it's a pet poodle. Results predictable.

The idea that exoplanets would be like ours was a beautiful dream. We imagined canals on Mars and Venus to be a tropical paradise. Even the Moon was once thought to have oceans. If other worlds didn't all turn out to be deadly hellholes, maybe there would be less need for fantasy characters to inject magic into people's lives?
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:24 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:11 amI'm a life long sci-fi fan. And though I love Star Trek I always wished that they would at least acknowledge the hostility of space and the realities of gravity once in a while.
How many times have you seen a character trapped under a bulkhead on a spaceship? They end up having to call Data to lift the weight. Why not just switch off the bloody artificial gravity generator? Because it is obvious that they must have it, else they would all be in free fall when in orbit. I also hat the way they beam down in their dress uniforms paying no heed to local atmospheric and meteorological conditions. I realis that is was done for budgetary reasons back in the day - but surely someone might have "got real" for NextGen?
All this stuff would make it all more interesting. But as a result all planets visited just seem so bland and anodyne; which is a shame since ST has the best stories.
God yeah! Star Trek somehow managed to be sophisticated and idiotic all at once. If he wanted to, William Shatner could have been another Leslie Nielsen. In a way, he already was :)

Imagine casually landing on another world in lightweight military gear - the place has Earthlike gravity, radiation, air pressure, temperature, atmospheric gases and the only hostile biology are usually funny-looking humans or grunting humanoids. Every now and then someone would catch a space disease and have to deal with radiation. To be fair, when Crusher and Picard fell into a hole, at least one of them was appropriately hurt.
Still, there was no budget excuse decades later in Ridley-Scott's Prometheus, where a biologist on an alien planet tries to pat an obviously hostile vagina-faced cobralike creature, as if it's a pet poodle. Results predictable.

The idea that exoplanets would be like ours was a beautiful dream. We imagined canals on Mars and Venus to be a tropical paradise. Even the Moon was once thought to have oceans. If other worlds didn't all turn out to be deadly hellholes, maybe there would be less need for fantasy characters to inject magic into people's lives?
I love a good sci-fi book that deals with the complexities of xenobiology. They are rare but rewarding reads when you get a good one.
It's worth reflecting what happened in South America when the Spanish arrived. Millions of Indians died of everyday diseases. How more devastating is it going to be on other planets!
Either the humans are going to die, or the aliens. The only other possibility is that life is so different that no proteins are compatible, in which case the settlers are going to be able to eat ZERO of the local life, and not grow anything because the soil bacteria are going to be antithetical to terran life forms.

Alien life is going to be bizarre. The chance that it is going to be immediately recognisable as life is slim, and the chance of it looking humanoid is impossible.

Some authors like Asimov has humans as the only living things, terraforming planets to be earth like to build a Galactic Empire. That works.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 6:30 pm
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:24 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:11 amI'm a life long sci-fi fan. And though I love Star Trek I always wished that they would at least acknowledge the hostility of space and the realities of gravity once in a while.
How many times have you seen a character trapped under a bulkhead on a spaceship? They end up having to call Data to lift the weight. Why not just switch off the bloody artificial gravity generator? Because it is obvious that they must have it, else they would all be in free fall when in orbit. I also hat the way they beam down in their dress uniforms paying no heed to local atmospheric and meteorological conditions. I realis that is was done for budgetary reasons back in the day - but surely someone might have "got real" for NextGen?
All this stuff would make it all more interesting. But as a result all planets visited just seem so bland and anodyne; which is a shame since ST has the best stories.
God yeah! Star Trek somehow managed to be sophisticated and idiotic all at once. If he wanted to, William Shatner could have been another Leslie Nielsen. In a way, he already was :)

Imagine casually landing on another world in lightweight military gear - the place has Earthlike gravity, radiation, air pressure, temperature, atmospheric gases and the only hostile biology are usually funny-looking humans or grunting humanoids. Every now and then someone would catch a space disease and have to deal with radiation. To be fair, when Crusher and Picard fell into a hole, at least one of them was appropriately hurt.
Still, there was no budget excuse decades later in Ridley-Scott's Prometheus, where a biologist on an alien planet tries to pat an obviously hostile vagina-faced cobralike creature, as if it's a pet poodle. Results predictable.

The idea that exoplanets would be like ours was a beautiful dream. We imagined canals on Mars and Venus to be a tropical paradise. Even the Moon was once thought to have oceans. If other worlds didn't all turn out to be deadly hellholes, maybe there would be less need for fantasy characters to inject magic into people's lives?
I love a good sci-fi book that deals with the complexities of xenobiology. They are rare but rewarding reads when you get a good one.
It's worth reflecting what happened in South America when the Spanish arrived. Millions of Indians died of everyday diseases. How more devastating is it going to be on other planets!
Either the humans are going to die, or the aliens. The only other possibility is that life is so different that no proteins are compatible, in which case the settlers are going to be able to eat ZERO of the local life, and not grow anything because the soil bacteria are going to be antithetical to terran life forms.

Alien life is going to be bizarre. The chance that it is going to be immediately recognisable as life is slim, and the chance of it looking humanoid is impossible.

Some authors like Asimov has humans as the only living things, terraforming planets to be earth like to build a Galactic Empire. That works.
Yes, in that case the Conquistadors acted as supervillains, cutting swathe through the Incas and Aztecs with their germs, powerful weapons and attitudes worthy of the Joker, the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Bane. Yes, if the dream of visiting planets with life was possible, either one world's microbiome would prevail, or they would not react at all. Fun to think that we could visit a planet full of life and everything would be indigestible to us and vice versa. I wrote a short story about a nuclear-powered Rover finding "life" deep in an underground cave of Mars but, based on what was found, no one was sure whether the things were alive or a type of hydrated biological crystal.

Red Dwarf was another series that assumed that the only life forms in space evolved from genetically modified life forms. RD was also full of great ideas on a low budget. Still, like Frank Zappa, I have always loved monster movies, and the cheaper they are, the better. That's the problem with superhero movies. There's one extraordinary thing after another and you become numb to the extraordinary, requiring ever more outrageous weirdness to keep viewers engaged. Ridley-Scott's Alien got it right, leaving the xenomorph obscured by shadow until near the end.

The same happened with the horror genre, becoming ever more violent and gory - a long way from Bela Lugosi quietly dragging his victim into the gloom behind a power pole, leaving the rest to imagination. The same desensitisation has happened with news media (which the band, Skyhooks, likened to horror movies), famously becoming ever more sensationalist and propagandist.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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A book (which is part of the OPEN COURT series Popular Culture and Philosophy):

Image

There is also a BLACKWELL Philosophy and Pop Culture Series with titles such as Batman and Philosophy, Superman and Philosophy, Spider-Man and Philosophy:

https://andphilosophy.com/books/
"We may philosophize well or ill, but we must philosophize." – Wilfrid Sellars
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 9:08 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 6:30 pm
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:24 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:11 amI'm a life long sci-fi fan. And though I love Star Trek I always wished that they would at least acknowledge the hostility of space and the realities of gravity once in a while.
How many times have you seen a character trapped under a bulkhead on a spaceship? They end up having to call Data to lift the weight. Why not just switch off the bloody artificial gravity generator? Because it is obvious that they must have it, else they would all be in free fall when in orbit. I also hat the way they beam down in their dress uniforms paying no heed to local atmospheric and meteorological conditions. I realis that is was done for budgetary reasons back in the day - but surely someone might have "got real" for NextGen?
All this stuff would make it all more interesting. But as a result all planets visited just seem so bland and anodyne; which is a shame since ST has the best stories.
God yeah! Star Trek somehow managed to be sophisticated and idiotic all at once. If he wanted to, William Shatner could have been another Leslie Nielsen. In a way, he already was :)

Imagine casually landing on another world in lightweight military gear - the place has Earthlike gravity, radiation, air pressure, temperature, atmospheric gases and the only hostile biology are usually funny-looking humans or grunting humanoids. Every now and then someone would catch a space disease and have to deal with radiation. To be fair, when Crusher and Picard fell into a hole, at least one of them was appropriately hurt.
Still, there was no budget excuse decades later in Ridley-Scott's Prometheus, where a biologist on an alien planet tries to pat an obviously hostile vagina-faced cobralike creature, as if it's a pet poodle. Results predictable.

The idea that exoplanets would be like ours was a beautiful dream. We imagined canals on Mars and Venus to be a tropical paradise. Even the Moon was once thought to have oceans. If other worlds didn't all turn out to be deadly hellholes, maybe there would be less need for fantasy characters to inject magic into people's lives?
I love a good sci-fi book that deals with the complexities of xenobiology. They are rare but rewarding reads when you get a good one.
It's worth reflecting what happened in South America when the Spanish arrived. Millions of Indians died of everyday diseases. How more devastating is it going to be on other planets!
Either the humans are going to die, or the aliens. The only other possibility is that life is so different that no proteins are compatible, in which case the settlers are going to be able to eat ZERO of the local life, and not grow anything because the soil bacteria are going to be antithetical to terran life forms.

Alien life is going to be bizarre. The chance that it is going to be immediately recognisable as life is slim, and the chance of it looking humanoid is impossible.

Some authors like Asimov has humans as the only living things, terraforming planets to be earth like to build a Galactic Empire. That works.
Yes, in that case the Conquistadors acted as supervillains, cutting swathe through the Incas and Aztecs with their germs, powerful weapons and attitudes worthy of the Joker, the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Bane. Yes, if the dream of visiting planets with life was possible, either one world's microbiome would prevail, or they would not react at all. Fun to think that we could visit a planet full of life and everything would be indigestible to us and vice versa. I wrote a short story about a nuclear-powered Rover finding "life" deep in an underground cave of Mars but, based on what was found, no one was sure whether the things were alive or a type of hydrated biological crystal.

Red Dwarf was another series that assumed that the only life forms in space evolved from genetically modified life forms. RD was also full of great ideas on a low budget. Still, like Frank Zappa, I have always loved monster movies, and the cheaper they are, the better. That's the problem with superhero movies. There's one extraordinary thing after another and you become numb to the extraordinary, requiring ever more outrageous weirdness to keep viewers engaged. Ridley-Scott's Alien got it right, leaving the xenomorph obscured by shadow until near the end.

The same happened with the horror genre, becoming ever more violent and gory - a long way from Bela Lugosi quietly dragging his victim into the gloom behind a power pole, leaving the rest to imagination. The same desensitisation has happened with news media (which the band, Skyhooks, likened to horror movies), famously becoming ever more sensationalist and propagandist.
In most cases the 2 hour format is a dead duck. With every film you can predict the next stage in the oh so predictable plot formula..
oh look the hero is having a crisis of confidence.
Here is where the high tech weapon runs out of bullets. Question; why does the hero always look at the gun before he throws it away?
and now the moment we have all been waiting for .. fisty-cuffs!! The hero punches it out with the nemesis.
Yawn!

I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
My vote goes to J Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. More happens in one episode of B5 than a whole series of Star Trek. Brilliant.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 9:08 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 6:30 pm
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 5:24 pm
God yeah! Star Trek somehow managed to be sophisticated and idiotic all at once. If he wanted to, William Shatner could have been another Leslie Nielsen. In a way, he already was :)

Imagine casually landing on another world in lightweight military gear - the place has Earthlike gravity, radiation, air pressure, temperature, atmospheric gases and the only hostile biology are usually funny-looking humans or grunting humanoids. Every now and then someone would catch a space disease and have to deal with radiation. To be fair, when Crusher and Picard fell into a hole, at least one of them was appropriately hurt.
Still, there was no budget excuse decades later in Ridley-Scott's Prometheus, where a biologist on an alien planet tries to pat an obviously hostile vagina-faced cobralike creature, as if it's a pet poodle. Results predictable.

The idea that exoplanets would be like ours was a beautiful dream. We imagined canals on Mars and Venus to be a tropical paradise. Even the Moon was once thought to have oceans. If other worlds didn't all turn out to be deadly hellholes, maybe there would be less need for fantasy characters to inject magic into people's lives?
I love a good sci-fi book that deals with the complexities of xenobiology. They are rare but rewarding reads when you get a good one.
It's worth reflecting what happened in South America when the Spanish arrived. Millions of Indians died of everyday diseases. How more devastating is it going to be on other planets!
Either the humans are going to die, or the aliens. The only other possibility is that life is so different that no proteins are compatible, in which case the settlers are going to be able to eat ZERO of the local life, and not grow anything because the soil bacteria are going to be antithetical to terran life forms.

Alien life is going to be bizarre. The chance that it is going to be immediately recognisable as life is slim, and the chance of it looking humanoid is impossible.

Some authors like Asimov has humans as the only living things, terraforming planets to be earth like to build a Galactic Empire. That works.
Yes, in that case the Conquistadors acted as supervillains, cutting swathe through the Incas and Aztecs with their germs, powerful weapons and attitudes worthy of the Joker, the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Bane. Yes, if the dream of visiting planets with life was possible, either one world's microbiome would prevail, or they would not react at all. Fun to think that we could visit a planet full of life and everything would be indigestible to us and vice versa. I wrote a short story about a nuclear-powered Rover finding "life" deep in an underground cave of Mars but, based on what was found, no one was sure whether the things were alive or a type of hydrated biological crystal.

Red Dwarf was another series that assumed that the only life forms in space evolved from genetically modified life forms. RD was also full of great ideas on a low budget. Still, like Frank Zappa, I have always loved monster movies, and the cheaper they are, the better. That's the problem with superhero movies. There's one extraordinary thing after another and you become numb to the extraordinary, requiring ever more outrageous weirdness to keep viewers engaged. Ridley-Scott's Alien got it right, leaving the xenomorph obscured by shadow until near the end.

The same happened with the horror genre, becoming ever more violent and gory - a long way from Bela Lugosi quietly dragging his victim into the gloom behind a power pole, leaving the rest to imagination. The same desensitisation has happened with news media (which the band, Skyhooks, likened to horror movies), famously becoming ever more sensationalist and propagandist.
In most cases the 2 hour format is a dead duck. With every film you can predict the next stage in the oh so predictable plot formula..
oh look the hero is having a crisis of confidence.
Here is where the high tech weapon runs out of bullets. Question; why does the hero always look at the gun before he throws it away?
and now the moment we have all been waiting for .. fisty-cuffs!! The hero punches it out with the nemesis.
Yawn!

I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
I've been watching it. The Expanse is one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've seen. Some of their concepts are incredible. I just wish they would not keep depicting noise in space. I thought Big Bug was a good futuristic comedy.

The action tropes you described just keep on playing out. These days the studios are repeating the formulas, only with a female or coloured heroes to replace white males. The idea is that if people can see themselves represented on screen, be it culture, colour, gender, sexuality etc, then they will relate to the stories more. Do adults really want to see themselves in these movies? I don't think I have ever seen myself in a movie. Isn't the whole point of fiction to take us out of ourselves and our usual world?
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Pattern-chaser wrote: August 20th, 2022, 6:38 am
Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
My vote goes to J Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5. More happens in one episode of B5 than a whole series of Star Trek. Brilliant.
It's good one too. Very political. I mainly remember Billy Mumy's and Mira Furlan's nuanced performances as the Minbari. Kosh the Vorlon
was always amusing in his bizarre and cunning ways, being more aware of what was going on than anyone else but he would never give helpful straight answers.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sy Borg wrote: August 20th, 2022, 8:40 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 9:08 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 19th, 2022, 6:30 pm

I love a good sci-fi book that deals with the complexities of xenobiology. They are rare but rewarding reads when you get a good one.
It's worth reflecting what happened in South America when the Spanish arrived. Millions of Indians died of everyday diseases. How more devastating is it going to be on other planets!
Either the humans are going to die, or the aliens. The only other possibility is that life is so different that no proteins are compatible, in which case the settlers are going to be able to eat ZERO of the local life, and not grow anything because the soil bacteria are going to be antithetical to terran life forms.

Alien life is going to be bizarre. The chance that it is going to be immediately recognisable as life is slim, and the chance of it looking humanoid is impossible.

Some authors like Asimov has humans as the only living things, terraforming planets to be earth like to build a Galactic Empire. That works.
Yes, in that case the Conquistadors acted as supervillains, cutting swathe through the Incas and Aztecs with their germs, powerful weapons and attitudes worthy of the Joker, the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Bane. Yes, if the dream of visiting planets with life was possible, either one world's microbiome would prevail, or they would not react at all. Fun to think that we could visit a planet full of life and everything would be indigestible to us and vice versa. I wrote a short story about a nuclear-powered Rover finding "life" deep in an underground cave of Mars but, based on what was found, no one was sure whether the things were alive or a type of hydrated biological crystal.

Red Dwarf was another series that assumed that the only life forms in space evolved from genetically modified life forms. RD was also full of great ideas on a low budget. Still, like Frank Zappa, I have always loved monster movies, and the cheaper they are, the better. That's the problem with superhero movies. There's one extraordinary thing after another and you become numb to the extraordinary, requiring ever more outrageous weirdness to keep viewers engaged. Ridley-Scott's Alien got it right, leaving the xenomorph obscured by shadow until near the end.

The same happened with the horror genre, becoming ever more violent and gory - a long way from Bela Lugosi quietly dragging his victim into the gloom behind a power pole, leaving the rest to imagination. The same desensitisation has happened with news media (which the band, Skyhooks, likened to horror movies), famously becoming ever more sensationalist and propagandist.
In most cases the 2 hour format is a dead duck. With every film you can predict the next stage in the oh so predictable plot formula..
oh look the hero is having a crisis of confidence.
Here is where the high tech weapon runs out of bullets. Question; why does the hero always look at the gun before he throws it away?
and now the moment we have all been waiting for .. fisty-cuffs!! The hero punches it out with the nemesis.
Yawn!

I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
I've been watching it. The Expanse is one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've seen. Some of their concepts are incredible. I just wish they would not keep depicting noise in space. I thought Big Bug was a good futuristic comedy.

The action tropes you described just keep on playing out. These days the studios are repeating the formulas, only with a female or coloured heroes to replace white males. The idea is that if people can see themselves represented on screen, be it culture, colour, gender, sexuality etc, then they will relate to the stories more. Do adults really want to see themselves in these movies? I don't think I have ever seen myself in a movie. Isn't the whole point of fiction to take us out of ourselves and our usual world?
I think being taken out of one self is one reason.
Placing yourself in the role is an equally valid reason for watching a drama.

Having a minority in a usually "white male" role can serve both functions. And Sci-fi is an excellent place to give a black actor a chance to do their job. I'd rather see more minorities in modern and futuristic dramas that allow the absurd population of them in historical roles, like having David Copperfield played by an Asian - which not only appears absurd on face value- but denies the fact the Victorian England was racist.

Yes there is no sound in space- but at least they reverse thrust and acknowledge inertia
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Ecurb wrote: August 18th, 2022, 5:38 pm Holmes is justly famous because the detective genre was almost unknown before Conan Doyle created it. Edgar Allen Poe is often credited with writing the first English language detective story, and Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone" might be the first mystery novels.

I can remember only a few of Conan Doyle's plots, but many of them strain credulity.
In the end, Holmes is a literary invention. Like super-heroes, he is more capable than normal, real-life, people, for reasons of entertainment. Fiction, in the end, is no more than that. So yes, the plots sometimes keep significant information from the reader, because if they were more realistic, Holmes could never do what he does in the stories. And humans love stories. Interestingly, humans tend to learn better, and retain more, from stories than from most other avenues of learning.
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Re: Superhero Obsession

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Sculptor1 wrote: August 21st, 2022, 5:49 am
Sy Borg wrote: August 20th, 2022, 8:40 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am
Sy Borg wrote: August 19th, 2022, 9:08 pm
Yes, in that case the Conquistadors acted as supervillains, cutting swathe through the Incas and Aztecs with their germs, powerful weapons and attitudes worthy of the Joker, the Penguin, Lex Luthor and Bane. Yes, if the dream of visiting planets with life was possible, either one world's microbiome would prevail, or they would not react at all. Fun to think that we could visit a planet full of life and everything would be indigestible to us and vice versa. I wrote a short story about a nuclear-powered Rover finding "life" deep in an underground cave of Mars but, based on what was found, no one was sure whether the things were alive or a type of hydrated biological crystal.

Red Dwarf was another series that assumed that the only life forms in space evolved from genetically modified life forms. RD was also full of great ideas on a low budget. Still, like Frank Zappa, I have always loved monster movies, and the cheaper they are, the better. That's the problem with superhero movies. There's one extraordinary thing after another and you become numb to the extraordinary, requiring ever more outrageous weirdness to keep viewers engaged. Ridley-Scott's Alien got it right, leaving the xenomorph obscured by shadow until near the end.

The same happened with the horror genre, becoming ever more violent and gory - a long way from Bela Lugosi quietly dragging his victim into the gloom behind a power pole, leaving the rest to imagination. The same desensitisation has happened with news media (which the band, Skyhooks, likened to horror movies), famously becoming ever more sensationalist and propagandist.
In most cases the 2 hour format is a dead duck. With every film you can predict the next stage in the oh so predictable plot formula..
oh look the hero is having a crisis of confidence.
Here is where the high tech weapon runs out of bullets. Question; why does the hero always look at the gun before he throws it away?
and now the moment we have all been waiting for .. fisty-cuffs!! The hero punches it out with the nemesis.
Yawn!

I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
I've been watching it. The Expanse is one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've seen. Some of their concepts are incredible. I just wish they would not keep depicting noise in space. I thought Big Bug was a good futuristic comedy.

The action tropes you described just keep on playing out. These days the studios are repeating the formulas, only with a female or coloured heroes to replace white males. The idea is that if people can see themselves represented on screen, be it culture, colour, gender, sexuality etc, then they will relate to the stories more. Do adults really want to see themselves in these movies? I don't think I have ever seen myself in a movie. Isn't the whole point of fiction to take us out of ourselves and our usual world?
I think being taken out of one self is one reason.
Placing yourself in the role is an equally valid reason for watching a drama.

Having a minority in a usually "white male" role can serve both functions. And Sci-fi is an excellent place to give a black actor a chance to do their job. I'd rather see more minorities in modern and futuristic dramas that allow the absurd population of them in historical roles, like having David Copperfield played by an Asian - which not only appears absurd on face value- but denies the fact the Victorian England was racist.

Yes there is no sound in space- but at least they reverse thrust and acknowledge inertia
You can usually tell when someone has been shoehorned in to boost representation, because they are not given a personality.

I still don't much understand the need to be represented on screen. As far as I can remember, every character I have seen on screen I have seen as "other" rather than "like me". Black, Asian and female characters generally seem no less like me than the usual production line of glamorous white females.

I could look for films that have tatty elderly women who are crazy about animals, but the fact is that I am already being me. Why would I need to see myself mirrored on a screen? Do you understand this apparent need to see oneself mirrored in absurd fiction tales?
User avatar
Sculptor1
Posts: 7091
Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am

Re: Superhero Obsession

Post by Sculptor1 »

Sy Borg wrote: August 21st, 2022, 9:39 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 21st, 2022, 5:49 am
Sy Borg wrote: August 20th, 2022, 8:40 pm
Sculptor1 wrote: August 20th, 2022, 4:01 am

In most cases the 2 hour format is a dead duck. With every film you can predict the next stage in the oh so predictable plot formula..
oh look the hero is having a crisis of confidence.
Here is where the high tech weapon runs out of bullets. Question; why does the hero always look at the gun before he throws it away?
and now the moment we have all been waiting for .. fisty-cuffs!! The hero punches it out with the nemesis.
Yawn!

I would recommend The Expanse if you like sci-fi.
I've been watching it. The Expanse is one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've seen. Some of their concepts are incredible. I just wish they would not keep depicting noise in space. I thought Big Bug was a good futuristic comedy.

The action tropes you described just keep on playing out. These days the studios are repeating the formulas, only with a female or coloured heroes to replace white males. The idea is that if people can see themselves represented on screen, be it culture, colour, gender, sexuality etc, then they will relate to the stories more. Do adults really want to see themselves in these movies? I don't think I have ever seen myself in a movie. Isn't the whole point of fiction to take us out of ourselves and our usual world?
I think being taken out of one self is one reason.
Placing yourself in the role is an equally valid reason for watching a drama.

Having a minority in a usually "white male" role can serve both functions. And Sci-fi is an excellent place to give a black actor a chance to do their job. I'd rather see more minorities in modern and futuristic dramas that allow the absurd population of them in historical roles, like having David Copperfield played by an Asian - which not only appears absurd on face value- but denies the fact the Victorian England was racist.

Yes there is no sound in space- but at least they reverse thrust and acknowledge inertia
You can usually tell when someone has been shoehorned in to boost representation, because they are not given a personality.

I still don't much understand the need to be represented on screen. As far as I can remember, every character I have seen on screen I have seen as "other" rather than "like me". Black, Asian and female characters generally seem no less like me than the usual production line of glamorous white females.

I could look for films that have tatty elderly women who are crazy about animals, but the fact is that I am already being me. Why would I need to see myself mirrored on a screen? Do you understand this apparent need to see oneself mirrored in absurd fiction tales?
Beware that people see what they are looking for.
The next black actor with a limited personality could just be obne of the many personalityless characters, but just happens to be black for no particular reason.
And if you see a black actor who appears in character to be no different from a white one, then ask your self what TF are you expecting?? DO you think you cannot be black unless yo iz street man?

All that aside I'm not really sure where your objections lie.
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UniversalAlien
Posts: 1578
Joined: March 20th, 2012, 9:37 pm
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Re: Superhero Obsession

Post by UniversalAlien »

To truly understand superheroes you must be a superhero :!: Just watching a superhero and temporarily suspending your belief in
the mundane is insufficient.

Philosophy could help you - Unfortunately most so called philosophers use philosophy to restrict rather than broaden the paradigms of reality - Paradigms which are in fact unlimited.

When I said on this forum just recently:
There is no absolute reality - Reality is always relative; Relative to time, space, space-time and observation.
An otherwise fairly intelligent philosopher wanted to dispute the assertion - Why :?:

Is it because he does not want to accept the limitless possibilities of the mind - Does he, or you, need and crave limits :?:

Don't you see the superhero overcomes and breaks the limits of time, space, and dimension - he knows the Greek Gods were real
- They could, like Thor, generate thunder and lightening - Same for the Egyptian god/myths.

But Man today with his obsession with monotheistic limitations and a false interpretation of what science reveals, continues to bask in his insignificance.

So philosopher and wannabe superhero get out of your delusional limitations and look for the realm of the superheroes hidden
inside all of us :arrow: You may crave a World of limitations, but the Universe you exist in does not accept limitations :idea:

All humans posses a superhero hidden within - hence "Superhero Obsession" can be expected :idea:





“We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up to now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.”
― Max Planck, The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics
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