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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
No, it's just used to dismiss any analysis. You can't read too deeply into anything, especially something where, as many people have pointed out, there is more than just subtext to it. Fucking hell, Film Crit Hulk outright said it was blatant text, not subtext.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I'm not sure if this was already known but apparently Peter will have his iron spider arms in Infinity War.
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Also that Thanos is absolutely soul-piercing.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:02:58 PM by LordVatek
This song needs more love.Thor Ragnarok is in big part about colonialism. The movie involves Asgard papering over their sordid past where they conquered the nine realms and burying it so deep almost no one alive in the present day knows anything about it. And then one of the architects of their conquering days comes back and wants to restart it, and the source of her power is literally the world that did the conquering. The only way to continue is to utterly destroy Asgard, thus obliterating the foundation of colonialism their empire was built on and saving those who abhor that history.
And you look at the world today, and the great colonial powers, who gained their wealth by conquering and stripping other nations, pretend that those days are over and gone, even though those days were necessary for them to exist as they do today.
Yes, Thor Ragnarok is a comedy, but comedy can absolutely be true, and in some ways, it can be easier to get a point across than with a drama.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:15:29 PM by Zendervai
It just feels outright insulting to keep saying that this film is somehow not a colonialist or imperialist story when numerous people keep saying it is. And frankly, I'm outright offended at it being labelled a "white man's perspective" when the director is Maori.
It's no different than the people who keep arguing that Black Panther isn't political and it reeks of looking down on the film because it's incredibly comedic in nature. Could the metaphor have been done better? Yeah, I kind of agree. But the dismissive attitude towards it and then having the gall to label a Maori man's film a "white perspective" is bordering on the same bullshit people keep saying to dismiss Black Panther.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I think when there is only a single spaceship left of your entire culture, you are refugees and not colonizers
Super strength aside, the remaining Asgardians are not going to be negotiating with anything like a position of strength
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe movie ends with Thanos about to wreck their shit so
Not doing any flag planting anytime soon
Forever liveblogging the AvengersYeah, they're in the merch for the film.
That's not an insult. It's how criticism works.
The question is whether the movie adequately reflects the themes of Imperialism, or uses them as a backdrop while is primarily focuses on other things, citing elements within the actual narrative of the movie as well as a comparable example within the MCU that more strongly explores the same content.
The director, outside of the actual body of his work, proclaiming that he totally meant to have a strong, developed theme about imperialism, doesn't mean that the fact the the movie doesn't actually adequately display that should be overlooked. Directors say lots of things. The director of Fan4stic said his movie was meant to be an artistic marvel that was above most superhero fans' thinking.
Likewise, the director being Maori doesn't mean everything he writes inherently more sage about the concept of Imperialism than anything else, regardless of the actual content of those creations. Black Panther isn't great at exploring race relations and imperialism just because the director is black, but also because said director knows what he's doing.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:52:03 PM by KnownUnknown
Yeah I think the issue with the imperalism is that first of all, it come out of them nowhere, second Odin, the chief architect of all that imperalism manage to go away in a peacfull matter leaving his mess to his two son to clean up.
Second is Hela personality resemble less that of a colonizer and more a warlord for a fantasy series, I compared her to shao khan in how cartoonish she is about conquering everything.
And finally blowing up asgard as solution.....really? it come more as some sort of revenge fantasy that a good way to deal with imperalism.
So yeah...I can see why people are bother a lot.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"I will concede that Odin gets off a bit too lightly for his role in things.
I will not concede that Hela is somehow too cartoony for a colonialist. I've read quite a bit about colonialism and imperialism, them being cartoonish is outright fitting because the good lot of them were incredibly cartoonish in numerous ways.
And blowing up Asgard as the solution...really what? The realm that was responsible for such acts is ultimately destroyed. It's poetic justice.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?The issue isn't that she's cartoony. It's that she's flat and the imperialism angle is undeveloped. She's not imperialist as a means of exploring what it means to be an imperialist. She's imperialist because it's easy characterization for villainy that doesn't require a lot of excess plot to explain. She shows up, reveals Odin used to be a warlord, and that's all set up for Thor to prove he's better than her. That's about it.
On the subject of comparing it to Black Panther: it's of course ridiculous to claim Black Panther isn't political because it very methodically and intrinsically explores national and race relations with every single characters' characterization, with every single arc being based around how those subjects effect the characters' perspective of the world and every challenge the characters face being a result of those struggles influencing their or other peoples' actions.
But at the same time, it's makes little more sense to claim Ragnarok is more political than it is, because ultimately it's a popcorn flick that uses imperialism as a largely lip-service backstory for its Generic Doomsday Villain and skives off that plot entirely to have Thor and Hulk fistfight in the middle of nowhere. Thor Ragnarok is significantly more interested in being fun than it is in having a message behind it.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:54:36 PM by KnownUnknown
yeah,but that was someone's home,people who had nothing to do with Ordin's conquests have lost everything
I wouldn't even call it poetic justice,they didn't deserve to lose their homeland,the guy that was ultimately responsible is long gone
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edited 12th Mar '18 6:53:50 PM by Ultimatum
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverMinority writers are in no way immune to having Westernized approaches to situations and ideologies when it comes to the things they write. As a minority myself who has spent much of his life reading, watching and experiencing the works of many, many minority writers, I can attest to the fact that many writers - especially movie and comic writers - default to the typical, normalized "white" way of thinking when it comes to characterization, plot and resolution, because that's what they're trained to believe is good and thus regurgitate.
It's a disappointing reality of the way colonialism has affected the modern world we live in, but it is reality.
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The conversation about Ragnarok started well before anyone mentioned Black Panther, so no, that's not it.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:59:06 PM by KnownUnknown
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They damn well better not.
I like both movies, and BP doesn't need to stand on another films corpse to rise high. It's standing tall all on its own as far as I'm concerned.
edited 12th Mar '18 6:55:34 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!

Saying anyone is reading too much into anything is just a strawman to dismiss any criticism or analysis.
edited 12th Mar '18 5:51:47 PM by AdricDePsycho
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?