Let memes die. Kill them, if you have to.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I remember one time when my stepdad didn't know there were bones in the brown stew chicken my mother brought home.
My personal WW 2 alt-history in my head is a WW 2 dieselpunk-fantasy fusion.
Essentially, the Axis have all this cool tech, right? Japan has huge mechs, the Nazis have everything the Stupid Jetpack Hitler trope entails, even the Italians have jet aircraft...but they're horrendously Awesome, yet Impractical. The Nazis blow so much resources trying to summon Elder Gods, the Italian jet aircraft is terribly vulnerable to small arms fire, and the huge mechs Japan makes are still fragile, big honking targets and require bigger computers all the time.
Meanwhile the Allies have really cool-looking tech too, which is not as...massive...as the Axis, but it works. America leads the way in dieselpunk warfare, while the Commonwealth's boffins pump out revolutionary inventions. Soviet Super Science is in full swing - they're lower quality than the West, but they never go wrong. The exception is Nationalist China, who battles Japanese robotics with 5000 years of mythology, such as dragons, Chinese hopping vampires, Sun Wukong, etc. (Meanwhile the Chinese Communists run on small-scale Schizo Tech.)
And before you ask, the war still goes as it does historically, with the exceptions being that the Nationalist armies perform a little better (Ichigo is beaten back for starters, with heavy Chinese casualties when doing so) and China ends up being partitioned between a Communist North and a Nationalist South.
edited 21st Jun '18 9:23:22 PM by TheWildWestPyro
Defending Hydra's use on the basis of "we don't want to make Nazis cool" is ridiculous, because as used, Hydra ends up simply insulting all the victims of real world atrocities. The moment the Red Skull launched nukes at Berlin, and Cap had to go stop Hitler from getting nuked, the film was sending a clear and unambiguous message, namely, "this guy is more evil than Hitler."
And he's not. The Skull is a bog standard take over the world villain. He has no plans for genocide on the scale the Nazis were planning. He's actively less evil, and more tame, than the Nazis are. And yet the film insists that Hydra is so, so much worse than the Nazi German state that it no longer serves, and that Cap should totally devote his time to fighting them, and oh god, it makes me want to scream.
Then the later films made it worse, having the Nazi knockoffs recruit nonwhite people, having them control the still very obviously Soviet Winter Soldier project, having Hydra takeover SHIELD, and otherwise doing everything in their power to turn them into a generic evil conspiracy...while still insisting they're totally the worst thing ever, ya'll. When they're not. Hydra are tamer and less evil than any of the regimes the MCU tries to associate them with, and the constant insistence that we accept how dangerous they are is just insulting.
Oh, and the whole "SHIELD is controlled by Hydra" is just the stupidest thing ever. You don't do a metaphor about how "we've become like our enemies" by revealing you're actually secretly controlled by your enemies. Winter Soldier doesn't critique American foreign policy, it excuses it, presenting a scenario in which SHIELD does not turn bad because of paranoia and xenophobia, but because it was secretly under the control of the worldwide evil conspiracy it was created to fight. It's like trying to criticize the American treatment of suspected terrorists by revealing that the CIA director is an al-Qaeda operative. It completely undermines your message, and throws any bad actions taken by the USA at the foot of al-Qaeda/Hydra.
The Marvel films think they can avoid any references to real world ills, while still commenting on those ills. In doing so they've created a set of at best, pretentious, at worst, ridiculous, films that have nothing to say on the topic. First Avenger is a terrible, and at times downright insulting movie, and while Winter Soldier and Civil War are better, they have to build on the wreckage that was the first movie.
No, it doesn't. It just establishes he's not a Nazi but his own thing.
He attempted to kill everyone on the East Coast of the United States. Your attempt to compare him to real life murderers, rapists, and war criminals is exactly WHY you don't do this shit, though. Do you really want to establish the Red Skull as a guy who can be judged against Hitler?
You need to keep a wall between factual monsters and fantasy ones.
Except for the murdering 200 million people with their orbital Death Drones. Mind you, they're THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA which you seem to be ignoring. The Hydra of the 2nd Movie is explicitly the US of A's Military Industrial Complex which does employ people of multiple races.
It's why I love the movie as the bad guys are Patriots.
And yet the United States is controlled in RL by a Nazi.
Yeah, I take the exact opposite tone of the social critique, especially since you just listed all the ways which Hydra is different from the Nazis and more American than German.
[[quoteblock]It's like trying to criticize the American treatment of suspected terrorists by revealing that the CIA director is an al-Qaeda operative. It completely undermines your message, and throws any bad actions taken by the USA at the foot of al-Qaeda/Hydra.[[/quoteblock]]
Except the United States recruited, trained, and rebuilt Hydra. Zola is working for the United States government.
The ultimate evil weapon of Winter Soldier is LITERALLY drone warfare and the logic behind them.
edited 21st Jun '18 9:59:11 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
The comics incarnation of HYDRA is at least more honest about its roots. The comics don't shy away from the fact that HYDRA is a Nazi organization led by Nazis. Its most prominent leaders are unrepetant Nazis: Wolfgang von Strucker and Red Skull.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:08:50 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
The television show, which is where Hydra appeared most often in the MCU constantly beats the Hydra=Nazi drum.
- Hydra's 2nd leader is a Nazi General. One who sees no difference between Hydra and the Nazis.
- In the Hydra ruled world, they deny the Holocaust
- They exterminate the Inhumans, using them as scapegoats for all crimes
- They forcibly impregnate their female members under threat of death
Plus Skye said the Red Skull was a Big Old Nazi.
Honestly, I don't think it's a great thing because it is piggy backing on RL atrocities.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:22:05 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Nope. It establishes him as "worse than Hitler." Otherwise, there'd be no need to save Berlin from getting nuked. Captain America saves Hitler's life in this movie. That's beyond screwed up.
Which still makes him less terrible than the Nazis. Seriously, take a good long look at the Nazi plans for the future. It makes what the Skull attempted look like nothing.
And if you're trying to keep a wall between "factual monsters" and "fantasy ones", don't set your story during WWII. The moment you do that, you have a moral obligation to avoid a) trying to one up the real life crimes of the Nazis or b) blaming anyone other than the Nazis for them. First Avenger broke rule a) and did so in an incredibly incompetent way, trying to have the Red Skull emerge as a separate threat from the Nazis, while being far less terrible than they were. It's incompetent and insensitive writing at its finest.
You don't get to set a story in WWII and present your villain as worse than the Axis Powers. You either make him a member of the Axis, or make him some unrelated and far more minor problem. You certainly don't try to have him nuke Nazi Berlin and portray this as something that has to be stopped.
Nice ALL CAPS. Clearly I must surrender in disgrace. Hydra's "plan" in Winter Soldier is pointless stupidity, so cartoonish as to be utterly unworthy of consideration. It's not commentary on current affairs, it's a bad Saturday morning cartoon.
And no, they aren't the military-industrial complex. First off, you can't be the military-industrial complex, that's just silly. Secondly, they're evil infiltrators within an organization, warping it for bad from the inside. Which kills the message.
No. It's not. It's run by a quintessentially American neofascist. Your inability to tell the difference between "Trump" and "still living WWII Nazi" is rather baffling.
No. I didn't. I'm not sure what world you're reading posts from, but it apparently isn't the one I'm posting from. There's nothing American about Hydra. There's nothing anything about Hydra. They're a bog standard "evil conspiracy." You could replace them with the Illuminati and change literally nothing about the story. And that's the problem. You can't comment on social ills, while putting their causes down to "ancient conspiracy run by a Swiss robot."
So? An American agency being suborned by a foreign national is not a story of Americans taking their own long fall into the dark. The story fails at a fundamentally basic level.
No, the ultimate evil of Winter Soldier is a Swiss computer. And again with the ALL CAPS. Are you operating under the impression that they improve your argument or make it more likely that it will be taken seriously? Because they have the exact opposite effect.
Also, "drones are bad" is an insipid message, and any film that tries to incorporate it is stupider for trying. It's anti-science fear of technology being mistaken for a critique of military intervention. Replace drones with "boots on the ground" and you kill just as many people. Replace drones with "level bombing" and you kill a lot more people, far more pointlessly. It's a sophomoric critique, usually made by those who have no real idea what they're talking about.
The film's message is garbled at best, stupid and counterproductive at worst. It doesn't say what it wants to say, and it doesn't say what you want it to say. By relying on the plot crutch of Hydra it ultimately says the same thing as every other Marvel film not named Black Panther: namely, nothing at all. The only difference being that at least the others know it.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:42:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
A procrastination in of itself
Agents of SHEILD doing Hydra right (eventually, after they killed of the multiracial council of Hydra) doesn’t excuse the films anymore than Agents understanding Asian representation excuses the MCU being well, the MCU when it comes to Asian representation.
Except Trump is a product of the US and US culture, he’s an American neo-Fascist, not a Nazi that infiltrated the US after the fall of Hitler.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:37:23 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Any movie in which the hero prevents Nazi Berlin—and with it, Hitler—from being nuked, is a film that has problems.
Oh, bother.
I'd also like to point out that the Insight Helicarriers in Winter Soldier aren't really drones either. Drones don't need to have people onboard them, which the Helicarriers did.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Captain America doesn't save Berlin from being nuked. Red Skull's going to use his Cosmic Cube weapon against the various capitals of the world to commit mass genocide but that's because he's taking over the world.
This is also like complaining Indiana Jones prevented the Nazis from getting the Ark saved Berlin from destruction.
Just to reiterate, I find the comparison of comic book and fantasy characters to real life dictators and monsters to be horrifying. I find it about as in good taste as asking who is more evil, the Mandarin or Saddam Hussein. Lex Luthor or Trump.
No, you really don't. Because the atrocities by the Red Skull are fictional ones just like the enemies punched. In fact, I'm actually interested in what you think the argument for why you should do this could possibly be in-universe or out.
Which they didn't. They just presented him as a villain. Also, he's a Nazi breakaway faction anyway so I'm not sure there's that big of a deal.
Facists think the best way to take over the world is kill everyone who disagrees with them. I'm not sure what the problem with it is. If they had the means, they'd do it.
A collection of military arms suppliers, their puppet politicians, and spies is pretty much agreed. Also, they're not infiltrators because they're American citizens and recruits taken from the ranks of the soldiers.
They're just the Far Right inside SHIELD.
Again, I point to RL about the attempts by Neo-Nazis to infiltrate and subvert America—which is happening now.
I guess it's a good thing a still-living WW 2 Nazi led Hydra...oh wait, one didn't. Pierce was the head of Hydra and Zola was long dead by the start of the movie.
There's nothing American about Hydra except for being American agents working for an American Intelligence agency, founded by members of Operation: Paperclip, and including a Congressmen as well as the Secretary of Defense (or whatever Pierce was Secretary of).
It's certainly as American as SHIELD.
Zola is an American citizen due to coming over in the RL operation: paperclip. See Von Braun.
I seem to recall him dying midway through the movie.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:53:48 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
So not "literally drone warfare". Meaning we now have a failed metaphor being used in service of an insipid social critique. That's just sad.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:51:13 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
No one was onboard other than Bucky and Cap during the finale. Isn't that why they were made the way they were, so Hydra didn't have to do much to take them over? I mean, they may be as much as half of SHIELD but this way they just had to be the ones using the signal.
That they could be operated like....a drone.
edited 21st Jun '18 10:55:23 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Oh, bother.
Did you not notice the HYDRA personnel onboard one of the Helicarriers in one scene?
Where exactly do you think those two were?
http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Project_Insight
edited 21st Jun '18 10:59:33 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
A procrastination in of itself
The Helicarriers were full of people, Cap fights a bunch of them on his way down to the control room thing and his speech has him talk about the crew all being Hydra.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:01:22 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
I stand corrected.
Sorry.
Edit:
FYI, here's a Mother Jones article on Winter Soldier being about the War on Terror.
This isn’t me reading things into a mainstream comic-book movie. It’s what the directors themselves will tell you.
“[Marvel] said they wanted to make a political thriller,” Joe Russo, who directed the film with his brother Anthony, tells Mother Jones. “So we said if you want to make a political thriller, all the great political thrillers have very current issues in them that reflect the anxiety of the audience…That gives it an immediacy, it makes it relevant. So [Anthony] and I just looked at the issues that were causing anxiety for us, because we read a lot and are politically inclined. And a lot of that stuff had to do with civil liberties issues, drone strikes, the president’s kill list, preemptive technology”—all themes they worked into the film, working closely with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen Mc Feely.
In The Winter Soldier, Captain America and the rest of the heroes (played by Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, and so on) confront the government program Project Insight, which involves three Helicarriers (gigantic autonomous killer drones, basically) that are fed large amounts of data and intel. The Helicarriers process the data to identify and preemptively eliminate potential threats to national and global security. And though the film’s topical parts were all crafted prior to the NSA revelations, the directors say it’s no accident that data mining is a key element of the plot: “It was all leading up to Snowden,” Joe says. “It was all in the ether [already], it was all part of the zeitgeist. The Snowden stuff actually happened while we were shooting.” “If there are 100 people we can kill to make us safer, do we do it? What if we find out there’s 1,000?…What if it’s a million?”
The politics of The Winter Soldier fit comfortably into the Russo brothers’ oeuvre, which has included plenty of political satire and commentary. Prior to The Winter Soldier, the duo was best known for directing episodes of Arrested Development, which produced some of the finest satire of the Bush era and Iraq War, and Community, which is also peppered with solid political humor and jabs. (As for their go-to sources for news and politics, Anthony’s top two are the the New York Times and NPR, while Joe’s are Digg and Reddit.) The day I interviewed them, they happened to be in Washington, DC, to meet with the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus.
According to Joe, the brothers pushed to make their Captain America political thriller even more political and topical than it initially was. “There were already things in the script that just needed to be pulled out to make it more [relevant],” he recalls. One of the film’s stars, Robert Redford, was approached for the role in large part because he starred in the 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor.
“[That film] was a big influence on this movie,” Joe says. “You could really call this movie ‘Three Days of Captain America,’ if you wanted to. The structure is so similar…We felt like we had a decent shot at getting [Redford] because the script had a political component to it and we thought that might motivate him.”
But don’t take any of this to mean the film is a stern lecture on American foreign policy. It’s thrilling as hell, and also the best to emerge in the recent string of Marvel movies. “We’re action fetishists,” Joe says. “And we love ’70s thrillers.” The brothers drew on the influence of some of their favorite action-flick moments: The famous bank heist and shootout in Michael Mann’s Heat. William Friedkin’s The French Connection. John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man. John Mc Tiernan’s Predator. Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption. (And for the Washington, DC-set car chase in The Winter Soldier, the brothers consulted You Tube, searching for videos of actual car chases. One video—wherein two escaped convicts in Brazil get stuck in traffic and plow through cars as police pursue them on foot—was especially helpful.) “Choreographing action, it’s like choreographing a Broadway show,” Anthony says.
But at the heart of the explosion and melee -filled film are the political themes, including targeted killing. “The question is where do you stop?” Joe says. “If there are 100 people we can kill to make us safer, do we do it? What if we find out there’s 1,000? What if we find out there’s 10,000? What if it’s a million? At what point do you stop?”
edited 21st Jun '18 11:02:58 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
You know, it's one thing to like the MCU. It's another thing to insist that the films in it have deep and important things to say about the world we live in. The MCU brand involves taking nothing, including its own source material, seriously. This is why it crashes and burns so hard whenever it runs into serious material, as it did during First Avenger, and, to a thankfully less irritating degree, Winter Soldier.
If you liked the movie, more power to you, but the messaging is incoherent at best, poisonous at worst. And while it's one thing to not allow that messaging to wreck your enjoyment of the film, it's an entirely different thing to insist that the messaging was good, or demand that others ignore what's very obviously in front of them.
Not every piece of media you like is going to have deep, meaningful messages in it. I like Yu Gi Oh, but I don't pretend it contains an important critique of modern capitalism—even if years of English classes have honed my abilities to the point where I could. Because I'm not going to read in messages where I know damn well there aren't any, and I'm not going to pretend that a vapid piece of media that I happen to enjoy has more to say than it really does.
First Avenger is a brainless popcorn flick that unintentionally dips its toes into Nazi apologia and insulting the survivors of real life atrocities. Winter Soldier is a much better written popcorn flick that unfortunately doesn't have near as much to say about current affairs at it thinks it does. That's all they are, and no amount of stretching reality is going to change that fact. It's already been pointed out to you repeatedly how the "drone" metaphor is laughably incompetent, and the rest of the position you're taking here doesn't hold any more water.
You can't make a set in WWII that tries to invent a threat that's bigger than the Axis. You can't have a film that simultaneously critiques American policy while portraying America as being under control of an ancient conspiracy. The former is insulting, the latter counterproductive and undercutting its own message.
Well, I let the Russos speak for themselves above.
You can judge what you think of their words rather than me talking about it.
Also, here's another article on Winter Soldier's themes:
https://stillcrew.com/infinity-war-the-winter-soldier-eb813b2931af
They’d implement, instruct, and inform every chaotic event that involved the U.S. post-World War II, all in the name of indoctrination. They’d use fear as a weapon, relying on the fact human beings can be a just a tad erratic. After every event, like 9/11, citizens would willfully hand over their personal information freedom in the name of protection, effectively making the Nazis the most powerful group in the history of society, whether modern or back when people wore loin cloths. They’d know everything about us, use that information to create a Facist society, and manipulate governments around the world all in the name of consolidating power and doing whatever it is they wanted to do, all in the name of continuing Hitler’s reign of terror.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, that’s essentially main engine powering Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Captain America finds out Hydra, the Marvel equivalent to the Nazis, infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. decades ago and have been operating in plain sight. They control every aspect of the government organization and have decided to use their illegal surveillance programs to construct weapons that eliminate targets before they can become dangerous. And by “dangerous,” they mean a threat to their own agenda.
There, now the three or four of you who haven’t seen this movie are now caught up and can see why it goes beyond the typical “comic book movie” trappings. Phase 2 of the MCU gets political — we’ve said that before — but this movie is the pinnacle of that political streak. The Winter Soldier puts Cap in a couple impossible situations while turning his world upside down, forcing him to question his alliances and things he believed to be true. But he never questions himself and rather than “see the world as it is.” He would much rather implant his views on how the world should be, deciding that even compromising a little means he’s unfit to be the guy carrying that incredibly heavy shield.
There’s a running theme of “choice” in every Captain America flick and our rights as citizens to choose what’s best for us. The choices made in this movie completely altered the MCU it’s a good bet Infinity War shows us more consequences of those decisions.
The Winter Soldier is thematically rich and rewarding on multiple views, and who knew it would come from two guys known for directing episodes of Community and Arrested Development? The Russo Brothers crafted not only one of the best Marvel flicks, but one of the best comic book flicks of all time and, if not for something very recent, would be considered the best flick in Marvel’s 10 years.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:16:23 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
A procrastination in of itself
The answer to that premis is that they couldn’t, ex-Nazis could maybe infiltrate the government if that wasn’t a laughable concept in of itself, but actully still devout Nazis? That’s not how Nazism works, Nazis don’t do subtle, it’s not how they operate.
X3 I’m already rolling my eyes at the article saying SHEILD is the government, not a strong start. The kill list idea kinda works, but that’s really it, thing is the film never looks at how a Fury list would realy be made. Because that’s where real kill lists have their issues, there’s not a real issue with keeping a list of high value enemy target combatants. The issue around US foreign policy is how a person gets out on said list and who dies with them.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:30:51 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
I think that's why HYDRA is better than the Nazis.
Tolkien said he hated metaphors in books because they were stupid and undermined actual discussion of literary value. He said that applicability was much better. His books weren't about WW 1 or WW 2 but he said you could use them to talk about WW 2.
Hydra is a much more flexible villain and useful for discussing fascism than actual Nazis who are only able to be used to discuss Nazism.
I'd argue the movie has issues with extralegal executions outside of wartime period.
Captain America wants SHIELD gone, not just Hydra.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:34:18 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Anyway, to get a little deeper into this...
First off, don't misuse the word "genocide". Nuking all the capitals of the world is mass murder, but not genocide. The Holocaust was genocide. The Holodomor was genocide. The killing fields of Cambodia were genocide. This is not genocide.
Berlin getting nuked would be, quite literally, the best thing that could happen to the world during WWII. Because the Nazis, unlike the MCU!Skull, were engaged in genocide, and were drawing up plans for more. Nuke Berlin and you take out most of the Nazi leadership and end the war in days.
Then stop defending a film that has the Red Skull try to nuke Hitler and Captain America stop it. The film takes the position that it's Skull is worse than Hitler. It taking that position is the entire basis of my criticism of it.
The Hell are you on about? The movie is set during WWII, using the greatest mass murder in history as a backdrop. And in trying to pretend that its fictional villain is somehow worse than that it is whitewashing the crimes of the Nazis.
Good fiction, including good superhero fiction, can be done that uses real life wars as a backdrop. Wonder Woman did a good job of using WWI as a backdrop. Hellboy did a good of using WWII as a backdrop. But that's because both those films understood that you do not whitewash or downplay the actual crimes that are happening at the time. First Avenger, conversely, is built on downplaying those crimes in order to make the Skull seem like a threat.
They absolutely presented him as worse than the Axis, or saving the capitals of the Axis would not be on the to do list. This is literally a part of the film. Why are you trying to pretend it isn't?
The Hydra of the film are not fascists. They are a generic "rule the world" conspiracy with no governing ideology. Stop misusing words.
Way to simplify complex real life interactions in the name of defending a film. The military-industrial complex isn't a who, it's a what. Trying to have a character represent it is just stupid.
And I say again that, sorry, neo-Nazis haven't infiltrated America. We aren't dealing with neofascism because refugees from World War II introduced the ideology. The problem is homegrown extremism. Entirely different thing.
Trump was secretly recruited into fascism by living Nazi and then inherited the position when said Nazi died? I must have missed that. Seriously, the contortions you are going through to defend a bad metaphor.
Trump wasn't even running for office when the movie came out. You are trying to position is as commenting on a phenomena that had not yet been observed. This could not be sillier.
The irony in this statement is palpable. SHIELD is controlled by Hydra. Hydra, is not American. Therefore, yeah, Hydra is as American as SHIELD. An entirely true statement that doesn't come close to saying what you want it to.
Hydra's a multinational conspiracy that involves Swiss Nazi computers and Russian cyborgs. It's a made up Illuminati that America can blame its problems on instead of dealing with them itself. There's no critique of American policy here—just the opposite.
Werner von Braun transformed NASA into a front for the Fourth Reich? The things I am learning today. Seriously, this isn't a response. It's not anything honestly.
Making SHIELD's actions the result of an imported foreign ideology and a multinational conspiracy undermines the point the movie thinks it's making.
Again, I'm not sure what you think this demonstrates. That the Illuminati continued to function after their foreign leader was removed doesn't suddenly make them American.
Winter Soldier has nothing to say about American foreign policy because it forgot to make its villains products of natural American processes. Black Panther, set in a foreign country, manages to have more to say about American foreign policy than Winter Soldier does, and that's about as damning an indictment as you're liable to find.
You don't criticize the American response to al-Qaeda by revealing America is secretly run by al-Qaeda. That's self-defeating and stupid.
1. You keep reiterating that Hydra is worse than the Nazis but have yet to provide any evidence other than your interpretation.
What makes them worse?
What in the movie implies the movie thinks they're worse?
2. They are absolutely fascist. What makes them not fascists? Their entire presentation and ideology is replete with fascist imagery plus goals.
3. Second: Hydra was destroyed by Captain America while the one founded by Armin Zola was on America soil, composed of Americans, and led by an American.
Pierce.
4. If The Illuminati were composed of Americans, they'd be Americans. There's no Hydra HQ in Germany, it's in Washington D.C.
American Neo-Nazis aren't German. They're American. Unfortunately. We can't pass the buck on this one.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:39:24 PM by CharlesPhipps
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah Hydra work as generic fascists that can be used as a stand in for whatever the current fascist movement of the day it, but they have to be kept actully fascist (when we said we wanted diversity in our villains we didn’t mean minority Nazis) and when they are connected to real groups they need to work under that group, not run off.
Cap didn’t have to break away from the Allies to fight Hydra, there was likewise no need for Hydra to break away from Hitler to fight Cap.
Yes and the why of that is never explained, Cap never makes the point that even the good people within SHEILD are a problem because they let things get this far. Cap declares that SHEILD most be done away with because it’s been subject to contamination by Nazis, not because there’s anything wrong with SHEILD, but because it touched Hydra’s tentacle and now has to be amputated to prevent Hydra cooties spreading.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:42:03 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Morally better, yes. Of more value to a story? God no. They're a boring conspiracy, with no real distinguishing features, and nothing to say about fascism, or anything else for that matter.
Now that's a bizarre appeal to authority. And a complete inversion of your position. You've swung from insisting the movies are a great metaphor to what, saying we shouldn't have metaphors? Make up your mind.
And honest to God, why I would care what Tolkien has to say about anything I'm not sure. I'm not a member of his cult.
Hydra is useless for discussing fascism because they're not fascists. They fail to meet the basic criteria to be a fascist movement. Then again, you previously tried to claim Trump was a "RL Nazi" so I'm starting to think that you're just throwing words around at this point.
Hydra can't be used to discuss anything. Not fascism, not government accountability, nothing. Because they're a secret worldwide conspiracy and those don't exist outside of bad fiction. They bring nothing to the table, and have nothing to offer. Using Hydra to educate someone about fascism will leave them more ignorant than they came into the discussion.
Not going to respond to anything here because I have a strict policy of not replying when someone starts responding to things I never said. And since I never said that Hydra are worse than the Nazis—only that the film tries to present them as worse while making them far tamer—I will not be replying to any of this.
Respond to the things people say. Not your made up versions of it.
edited 21st Jun '18 11:44:43 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Nope. You gotta be careful of the ribs while you eat. Again, this is less of a problem when it's in soup.
Disgusted, but not surprised