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Thor: Ragnarok

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Mark said:
It might shock you to discover that most people in the west don't give a s*** about colonialism because it has never personally affected them Negatively. Most people generally don't like it when they are preached to by self-righteous people trying to beat them over the head with an ideology they don't care about.
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WELL GOLLY I WONDER WHY
 
Hykal94 said:
By that logic, you would also hate most WW2 games because a lot of WW2 games are pretty anti-Nazi, pro-America, pro-Britain, pro-Russian, etc.

Like you just sound angry that Watiti dared to put anti-colonialist sentiments in his film. If it was literally any other thing you wouldn't be angry.
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I'm annoyed by the fact that AntiColonial sentiment really had no place in this storyline, so he altered the storyline to force his perspective into it. To use the example of World War II what if this guy decided Great Britain deserved to lose the war because of the sins of colonialism, so he wrote the Germans successfully invading and capturing the British Isles?

I think we would all be a lot less tolerant of that revisionism.

Instead of Asgard being destroyed in order to kill the villain.... Asgard was destroyed in order to wipe out the last vestiges of its evil conquering past.

The sacrifice of Asgard goes from being heroic to merely justice being served as all their chickens come home to roost.

Now do I expect that everyone will get that on their first viewing? Of course not, but this is going on DVD and is going to be debated for many many decades to come
 
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Mutton said:
The take of "should face and deal with the legacy of colonialism" is "nuke New Zealand" is a new one King Leopold.

Again, this was a million times less political than the later Captain America films. Or arguably Iron Man 3. Definitely less than The Dark Knight. Or Iron Man 1. It was also of the "controversial political opinion" level of "the power of friendship."
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Eh, I'd argue both Captain America films kind've soft pedaled their politics. TWS can be boiled down to a generic "Freedom is good, surveillance is bad", and CW's politics are muddled by the film not-so-subtly siding with Cap and pulling its punches. Even The First Avenger makes Hydra too crazy for the Nazi's and into generic bad guys. Ragnarok actually bakes its themes into the movie instead of having the characters simply say "Surveilance is wrong!" and then go back to punching mooks.

Also, the idea that Waititi is "shoving his politics down our throat" is laughable, given that a decent chunk of this thread said they completely missed the anti-colonialism bit, and indeed argued that it wasn't even there (to say nothing of the fact that all art is political, so demanding that superhero films be somehow void of any thematic content is like, super dumb).
 
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Mark said:
Neither group constitutes anything even resembling "most" in the west.
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I'm honestly scratching my head why you think a movie saying (in literally the gentlest possible terms, given that it's all wrapped up in big superhero candy coated fun) "Hey, maybe colonialism and imperialism was bad" is offensive. Is that not something worth saying, or do you genuinely think that it's wrong in any context to argue that colonialism and imperialism were wrong?
 
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Mark said:
I prefer my comic based science fiction escapism to be science fiction escapism, not Maori propaganda. I have nothing against this director, but I could care less what his politics are. You would be bitching at me if I directed this movie and put a whole bunch of pro-life anti-abortion message into it because that's what I felt like. If you are going to praise this director for inserting his own political beliefs into the movie, then you need to maintain ideological consistency and do the same if I chose to put my beliefs into the movie against your personal views
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That's gibberish. At no point does valuing any kind of political messaging mean all of it has to be valued equally to be self-consistent. "I hold political messaging in stories can be good and this is one such example" in no way means that I now have to hold Do The Right Thing or Saving Private Ryan as being in the same category as Nazi propaganda films.

Also lol @ Idris Elba being cast because of SJWs. He got cast because he's an amazing actor well suited to melodrama. Yes, the magic space kingdom of Asgard is multiethnic aesthetically but he didn't get the job for being black. He got it from being one of the greatest actors of his generation. Lord have mercy.

You are embarrassing yourself. This is pathetic. Do you have a point to make here beyond "I don't like Maoris having a film with their stamp on it" and apologia for colonialism or is there anything else here?
 
Mark said:
It might shock you to discover that most people in the west don't give a s*** about colonialism because it has never personally affected them Negatively. Most people generally don't like it when they are preached to by self-righteous people trying to beat them over the head with an ideology they don't care about.
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Oh yeah also most people in the western hemisphere aren't privileged white people and DO still struggle with it. So. Y'know. Nah.
 
Whoa, hold up a moment; "I don't care about colonialism because I don't see it in my everyday life" is the exact kind of message that the film wanted to impart, that you are not guilty of its sins but acknowledging its place in building our nations is important.

This movie was made for your Mark. Sewn and hemmed, the exact message you need to hear.
 
Rook said:
Oh yeah also most people in the western hemisphere aren't privileged white people and DO still struggle with it. So. Y'know. Nah.
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Don't forget the rest of the world, where Thor: Ragnarok will be shown. The number of people who can legitimately say they were negatively affected by the legacy of colonialism is what, literally 85% of the world? And both India and China have a pretty huge movie-watching population, have definitely been fucked by colonialism, and that's half the world population right there.

So I would think that the people who will end up watching this film do care about colonialism. For some reason.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
I'm honestly scratching my head why you think a movie saying (in literally the gentles possible terms, given that it's all wrapped up in big superhero candy coated fun) "Hey, maybe colonialism and imperialism was bad" is offensive. Is that not something worth saying, or do you genuinely think that it's wrong in any context to argue that colonialism and imperialism were wrong?
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I'm annoyed that he had a movie where he had to destroy Asgard, so he rewrote their backstory to make them colonialist so when he blew up Asgard he could convey blowing up colonialism.


He managed to turn the good guys into bad guys so when they got destroyed he could dance around and pat himself on the back for it.

Why doesn't somebody just write a movie about the Maori and make them Nazis so then you could justify wiping them out?

That's not how it's supposed to work.... you can't just alter the backstory to fit what you want. That's what annoys me the most he had an agenda walking into this and he decided to alter the backstory of the characters to convey a political message.
 
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Mark said:
I'm annoyed that he had a movie where he had to destroy Asgard, so he rewrote their backstory to make them colonialist so when he blew up Asgard he could convey blowing up colonialism.
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pop quiz how many fucking times did they say "Asgard isn't a place, it's a people."

trick question because the answer is "Mark wasn't paying attention"
 
Mark said:
I'm annoyed that he had a movie where he had to destroy Asgard, so he rewrote their backstory to make them colonialist so when he blew up Asgard he could convey blowing up colonialism.
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I kinda get that, but honestly the whole thing was basically a soft reboot of the Thor stuff so I don't really mind it.
 
Mark said:
I'm annoyed that he had a movie where he had to destroy Asgard, so he rewrote their backstory to make them colonialist so when he blew up Asgard he could convey blowing up colonialism.
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So…that doesn't answer the question. Do you think that it's wrong to argue that colonialism and imperialism were wrong?
 
I didn't have a damn thing to do with colonialism, my country didn't have a damn thing to do with British colonialism nobody on this side of the planet is responsible for British colonialism in New Zealand. Excuse me if I don't want a pissed-off New Zealander telling me what I need to be angry about in a movie because he's angry about it

Mutton said:
Whoa, hold up a moment; "I don't care about colonialism because I don't see it in my everyday life" is the exact kind of message that the film wanted to impart, that you are not guilty of its sins but acknowledging its place in building our nations is important.

This movie was made for your Mark. Sewn and hemmed, the exact message you need to hear.
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Mark said:
I didn't have a damn thing to do with colonialism, my country didn't have a damn thing to do with British colonialism nobody on this side of the planet is responsible for British colonialism in New Zealand. Excuse me if I don't want a pissed-off New Zealander telling me what I need to be angry about in a movie because he's angry about it
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What does this have to do with anything? Whether or not your country was affected by colonialism (which is, uh, basically impossible shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not you think colonialism is wrong and is something that should be presented as wrong.
 
Mark said:
I'm annoyed that he had a movie where he had to destroy Asgard, so he rewrote their backstory to make them colonialist so when he blew up Asgard he could convey blowing up colonialism.
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That's not even why it got blown up; Sutur and Hela were the sins of colonialism and the people of Asgard were innocent (who are what made Asgard well, Asgard). Them blowing up the place was seen as an injustice, because that's what the compounded sins of colonialism are, an injustice. You completely failed to grasp the metaphor while railing against it.

Really, what nation are you from that your nation has nothing to do with colonialism? Obviously not Britain, America, Canada, or any of the Western or Central European states. Not Africa, Latin America, Southern Asia, or East Asia. Perhaps one of the Stans, I don't know their history very well?

And is the fact that a movie took a moral stance always wrong? Is Spider-man bad for saying with great power comes great responsibility? Batman for killing is bad? Superman for Truth, Justice, and the American Way?
 
Mark said:
I didn't have a damn thing to do with colonialism, my country didn't have a damn thing to do with British colonialism nobody on this side of the planet is responsible for British colonialism in New Zealand. Excuse me if I don't want a pissed-off New Zealander telling me what I need to be angry about in a movie because he's angry about it
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You do realize that media doesn't control you, right?

It was a solid enough story with an underlying message. Either you got the message or you didn't. Either you agreed with the message or you didn't.

Why are you so angry about this message? You keep minimalizing it in one sentence then turning around to act as if you were personally attacked by it in the next second. I'm not understanding your angle here.
 
Mutton said:
That's not even why it got blown up; Sutur and Hela were the sins of colonialism and the people of Asgard were innocent (who are what made Asgard well, Asgard). Them blowing up the place was seen as an injustice, because that's what the compounded sins of colonialism are, an injustice. You completely failed to grasp the metaphor while railing against it.

Really, what nation are you from that your nation has nothing to do with colonialism? Obviously not Britain, America, Canada, or any of the Western or Central European states. Not Africa, Latin America, Southern Asia, or East Asia. Perhaps one of the Stans, I don't know their history very well?

And is the fact that a movie took a moral stance always wrong? Is Spider-man bad for saying with great power comes great responsibility? Batman for killing is bad? Superman for Truth, Justice, and the American Way?
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You clearly didn't get the point that the Asgardian people now must give up their way of life and be sent into Exile to pay for the sins of their past. He literally turned them into refugees seeking asylum on Earth.

Didn't you get the part where Asgard was built on The Spoils of colonialism?! Poof! All gone no more, now the Asgardian people must give up all their ill-gotten gains and throw themselves on the mercy of the people of the nine Realms which they wronged?
 
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So far we're getting an excellent illustration of why subtle messages are useful. The second it becomes less than subtle you get the usual crowd complaining "Thor is SJW propaganda about white guilt" or whatnot. Then trying to interpret the movie in a WN way in total defiance of its content and intent.
 
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