Remove ads

Thor: Ragnarok

Reader mode
MJ12 Commando said:
Spoilers: Thor: Ragnarok screenwriter on what didn't make the cut - Movie News | JoBlo.com

BTW: It wasn't Waititi who decided to make Hela Thor's sister and make it so that Odin's legacy was tainted from what he did before becoming a peacemaker.

It's actually really telling that @Mark goes and blames the minority, rather than the white guy who wrote the script, isn't it?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

In fairness we were all crediting Waititi, and I'm dead certain we are also Mark's only insight into the movie's inner workings. :V
 
Yeah. All these claims that Asgard doesn't have a history of bloody conquest and imperialism are bullshit.

First Movie: Asgardians beat down the Jotuns in a bloody war, stole their sacred relics, confining them to a frozen waste and subject to the power of Asgard. Then put said sacred relic(alongside other place's artifacts) in a vault/museum on display. Where exactly does Odin derive the right to subjugate others in that fashion again?

Second Movie: The events of the first movie have the realms seeing Asgard as weak and are rebelling and Thor and Co are venturing into the other realms to put down revolts. Edit:Sorry, 'bandits and peacekeeping missions'.

Point is nothing in Ragnarok contradicts the previous two movies as far as Asgard's History goes. History's written by the victors, after all.
 
Last edited:
I understand the idea of defending the movie's message but...

Well, shit, making Asgard out as being built off the back of pseudo-colonialism when it was made by a liberal Jewish-American man (Jack Kirby) as commentary on the idea that comicbook superheroes had similarities to mythological heroes and gods (alongside the idea the idea of juxtaposing modernity and mythology as a natural consequence) feels kinda fucked up in my opinion.

Also, really, @Jace911, calling @Mark a Nazi?


*Sigh* Can we just talk about the set design and cinematography?
 
Nilay said:
I understand the idea of defending the movie's message but...

Well, shit, making Asgard out as being built off the back of pseudo-colonialism when it was made by a liberal Jewish-American man (Jack Kirby) as commentary on the idea that comicbook superheroes had similarities to mythological heroes and gods (alongside the idea the idea of juxtaposing modernity and mythology as a natural consequence) feels kinda fucked up in my opinion.

Also, really, @Jace911, calling @Mark a Nazi?


*Sigh* Can we just talk about the set design and cinematography?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't see what being jewish has to do with colonialism.
 
Jcogginsa said:
I don't see what being jewish has to do with colonialism.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That's kind of the point, but....

Well, the point was that a man who was part of a group that had to deal with racist sentiments and the side effects of colonialism probably wouldn't base his ideal science-fantasy kingdom around colonialism.
 
Nilay said:
That's kind of the point, but....

Well, the point was that a man who was part of a group that had to deal with racist sentiments and the side effects of colonialism probably wouldn't base his ideal science-fantasy kingdom around colonialism.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Kirby may not have created them o be about colonialism, but it's a valid use for them.
 
Jcogginsa said:
Kirby may not have created them o be about colonialism, but it's a valid use for them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I know, but this should be a topic worth discussing.

Granted it's a complicated topic that needs to be talked about civilly and in it's own thread, so....

Also, I'm OK with the colonialism metaphor but holy shit why didn't they make the Hulk into a deportation metaphor?
 
Nilay said:
I know, but this should be a topic worth discussing.

Granted it's a complicated topic that needs to be talked about civilly and in it's own thread, so....

Also, I'm OK with the colonialism metaphor but holy shit why didn't they make the Hulk into a deportation metaphor?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hulk doesn't lend itself to that sort of commentary.

in comparison, Anything that features glorification of past exploits can be a viable means of tackling colonialism
 
Jcogginsa said:
Hulk doesn't lend itself to that sort of commentary.

in comparison, Anything that features glorification of past exploits can be a viable means of tackling colonialism
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...How?

Like, if you can make a saga of a 10,000 year old magical boy searching for his magical hammer into a smart allegory for colonialism, why couldn't you make the Hulk's story a metaphor for deportation? Or being neurologically atypical. Like, I'd be honestly interested in that particular angle.
 
Nilay said:
...How?

Like, if you can make a saga of a 10,000 year old magical boy searching for his magical hammer into a smart allegory for colonialism, why couldn't you make the Hulk's story a metaphor for deportation? Or being neurologically atypical. Like, I'd be honestly interested in that particular angle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Part of the reason people have the need to address colonialism nowadays is that society wants to romanticize and sanitize the period, to pretend that it wasn't that bad in order to feel better about themselves. that results in the glorification of that past, and from that glorification, a desire to return to the "better" times.
 
Nilay said:
Well, shit, making Asgard out as being built off the back of pseudo-colonialism when it was made by a liberal Jewish-American man (Jack Kirby) as commentary on the idea that comicbook superheroes had similarities to mythological heroes and gods (alongside the idea the idea of juxtaposing modernity and mythology as a natural consequence) feels kinda fucked up in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Thing is MCU Asgard has little to do with comics Asgard anyway (and current comics Asgard has little to do with the goofy and cheesy 60s Asgard of Kirby, which only featured as back cover side stories for a long while anyway). And again, the Asgardians themselves, the characters Kirby created, are not portrayed as bad, it's only the one location.

Not that Kirby's politics and religion have to do with much in this case.
Nilay said:
Also, really, @Jace911, calling @Mark a Nazi?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You haven't interacted much with Mark, it seems.

Maybe not a Nazi, but definitely "Facebook White Dad".
 
all fictions said:
Thing is MCU Asgard has little to do with comics Asgard anyway (and current comics Asgard has little to do with the goofy and cheesy 60s Asgard of Kirby, which only featured as back cover side stories for a long while anyway). And again, the Asgardians themselves, the characters Kirby created, are not portrayed as bad, it's only the one location.

Not that Kirby's politics and religion have to do with much in this case.

You haven't interacted much with Mark, it seems.

Maybe not a Nazi, but definitely "Facebook White Dad".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Still, there should be SOME discussion on it in another thread.

Also, I've seen the shit @Mark got up to; he seems to be more horribly socially inept than racist or a Facebook white dad.
 
Nilay said:
Well, shit, making Asgard out as being built off the back of pseudo-colonialism when it was made by a liberal Jewish-American man (Jack Kirby) as commentary on the idea that comicbook superheroes had similarities to mythological heroes and gods (alongside the idea the idea of juxtaposing modernity and mythology as a natural consequence) feels kinda fucked up in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

...but it wasn't fucked up when it was a benevolent Nordic ubermensch fantasy empire???
 
Nilay said:
Also, really, @Jace911, calling @Mark a Nazi?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

He skirts the line at times:
Mark said:
I'm not German, but that doesn't mean I don't feel bad for the entire generation of Germans who were raised to hate themselves for being German because of what a small number of their grandfathers did a long time ago.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Just because Jack Kirby didn't intend to glorify colonialism doesn't mean themes of glorifying colonialism don't appear in the work. I mean they probably had a completely different idea of what it meant to glorify colonialism in the 1960's and things like that often come up when you reexamine older works with a modern eye. And even if they didn't appear in the original work, there's enough separation between Kirby's original work and MCU Asgard that I don't see any issue with adding any.
 
Nilay said:
Also, I've seen the shit @Mark got up to; he seems to be more horribly socially inept than racist or a Facebook white dad.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What the actual fuck?

In what Universe is he not pretty obviously pushing racist narratives and dogwhistling like mad?

Like I am literally boggled by the existence of this sentence.


Yeangst said:
Just because Jack Kirby didn't intend to glorify colonialism doesn't mean themes of glorifying colonialism don't appear in the work. I mean they probably had a completely different idea of what it meant to glorify colonialism in the 1960's and things like that often come up when you reexamine older works with a modern eye. And even if they didn't appear in the original work, there's enough separation between Kirby's original work and MCU Asgard that I don't see any issue with adding any.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Setting aside the Watsonian, the Doylist fact of Norse Mythology being commonly used by neo-nazi groups is more than enough justification for a more critical depiction of Norse mythology that engages with it's thematic glorification of Conquest and Violence.


Because if you actually look at Norse mythology from the Anthropologist or Folklorist or Historian's view, There's a crapton of Conquest/Colonialism stuff in the relationship between the Aesir and Vanir.
 
Chloe Sullivan said:
What the actual fuck?

In what Universe is he not pretty obviously pushing racist narratives and dogwhistling like mad?

Like I am literally boggled by the existence of this sentence.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fine, I'm wrong.

Fuck it.

EDIT: Still, I don't think that @Mark's trying to be a racist dickhead (I mean, he flat out was one, but still), calling him a fucking Nazi is ridiculous and the dogpiling is frankly disturbing. Look, I like SV, but I can't like all of it by default and the "you're either with me or against me and if you're against me we're going to outnumber you 10 to 1 and mock you to your face" mentality disturbs me even though I'm mostly part of the 10 to 1 in that statement so...
 
Last edited:
Nilay said:
Fine, I'm wrong.

Fuck it.

EDIT: Still, I don't think that @Matt's trying to be a racist dickhead (I mean, he flat out was one, but still), calling him a fucking Nazi is ridiculous and the dogpiling is frankly disturbing. Look, I like SV, but I can't like all of it by default and the "you're either with me or against me and if you're against me we're going to outnumber you 10 to 1 and mock you to your face" mentality disturbs me even though I'm mostly part of the 10 to 1 in that statement so...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You tagged the wrong guy, just so you know.
 
Jcogginsa said:
Part of the reason people have the need to address colonialism nowadays is that society wants to romanticize and sanitize the period, to pretend that it wasn't that bad in order to feel better about themselves. that results in the glorification of that past, and from that glorification, a desire to return to the "better" times.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And the counter argument is that people want to "BLAME" someone for their lives...so they pick on the current generation of people in the west who haven't done anything to them...but who's ancestors may or may not have had something to do with Colonialism.

That's what I see happening in this movie. The current generation of Asgardians must be ripped from their homes and sent into exile to atone for the implied sins of the previous generation.

My argument is to simply let the past be the past. Stop blaming the current generation for the actions of their predecessors, and move on.

The whole concept of reparations traps people in the past and prevents them from moving on and making a better world.
 
Last edited:
Mark said:
And the counter argument is that people want to "BLAME" someone for their lives...so they pick on the current generation of people in the west who haven't done anything to them...but who's ancestors may or may not have had something to do with Colonialism.

That's what I see happening in this movie. The current generation of Asgardians must be ripped from their homes and sent into exile to atone for the implied sins of the previous generation.

My argument is to simply let the past be the past. Stop blaming the current generation for the actions of their predecessors, and move on.

The whole concept of reparations traps people in the past and prevents them from moving on and making a better world.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

But the entire point is-

Fuck it, can we talk about LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE!?

Like the cinematography!?

Or the soundtrack!?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top