Escape to the Movies: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
You just said you wish I had never been born because my ancestors had been brutally slaughtered. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess the individuals you are complaining about were being totally reasonable and only defending themselves from unfair attacks by you.iblis666 said:
I once read an article that basically said, "yes, the South has many problems, but it's still not okay to stereotype anyone." There were hundreds of comments, and almost every single one literally and explicitly argued that Southerners should be stereotyped because they bare collective guilt. Do you post on Salon by chance?
(fellow born-and-raised resident of the Southern States slowly stands and begins a slow clap, while offering a meaningful nod)ollieoz17 said:
I saw this and disagree. The only character I noticed to fall flat was Joshua Speed, played by Jimmi Simpson. I thought, "Oh, the crazy guy from "It's Always Sunny". I wonder what he's going to do.", but he was only a device to help give Lincoln a place to stay when killing vampires and later do something in the ending that could have been done by an unknown and it wouldn't have made a difference. I don't want to post spoilers.Lionsfan said:
*takes off sunglasses* Mother of God... That... Oddly explains a lot. Or nothing. I can't tell which.arc1991 said:
I went to see it on sunday and have to say that I was rather surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. Bob is right about the pacing though, there were a fair few big jumps in the timeline that could have done with some smoothing.
Well, they were technically fighting for independence, but I find any such names for the war to be rather cutsy and pointless. The "War of Northern Aggression" is just funny. It was a Civil War by most standards so that's probably what it should be called. Sorry if that doesn't make it easy for you to dismiss everything I said without thinking about it. ;PCaptainMarvelous said:
Ahhh my bad, didn't give proper context, I meant, given how you view the Civil War how do you view the War of Independence (the war against Britain), in that, you don't see either side as being villains in the Civil War. I'd give some sarcasm back but that was totally my bad for not giving a long enough reply first time round.ReiverCorrupter said:
Well, first off, my point was that neither sides were monadic entities that could entirely be seen as either villains or heroes. It was that both sides had their fair share of villains and heroes.CaptainMarvelous said:
I think the revolutionary war is also filled with propaganda. The fact of the matter was that the English were taxing us in order to help pay back for the very costly war they had to wage with the French Canadians on our behalf. We were dicks for not wanting to pay the taxes. But the British were also dicks for not giving us representation in Parliament. On the American side, the war was largely perpetrated by wealthy New England merchants whose profits were being affected by the taxes. These people probably wouldn't have been satisfied merely with representation in parliament. Of course, the British certainly didn't help the situation by reverting back to their typical tactics of brutal suppression. The Americans also committed plenty of atrocities against people they saw as British sympathizers as well, which people don't like to mention. So once again, the historical facts are far more nuanced than the way the history is presented.
However, America's secession was pretty much inevitable one way or the other. Our population would eventually rise to the point that we would dominate the British Parliament under proportional representation, which the British would likely consider unacceptable. Not to mention the fact that the massive infrastructure and the accompanying logistics of our country would eventually necessitate self-governance.
The only war that I really see as being close to black and white is WWII, for obvious reasons. But even then, I don't think the regular German soldier could be blamed for the atrocities committed by the SS. Even if their overall cause was pretty sickeningly evil, it's unfair to demonize the personal sacrifice of those who died thinking they were protecting their motherland and probably had no knowledge of the death camps.
I would also point out that the Allies did some very nasty stuff to Germany as well, such as the firebombing of Dresden by the British and the raping and pillaging done by the Russians after the fall of Berlin (which we pretty much ignored). Not to mention the fact that the crippling sanctions placed on Germany after WWI probably played some part in the Nazi's rise to power. The fact that the efforts to actually rebuild Western Germany after WWII has made them our allies as opposed to the effects of the sanctions placed on them after WWI should be acknowledged as an important historical lesson.
This might piss a lot of people off, because, after all, if you're going to demonize somebody, the Nazis are the natural target. And I can hardly blame people for having strong feelings about the matter. But if you want to claim to be rational you'll have to sacrifice your personal feelings and look at things through a cool objective perspective.
So there you go: a reasoned approach to history is one that doesn't involve absolutist moralization and demonization.
I recently saw the movie and enjoyed it... though I haven't gotten around to reading the book yet (I still want to though). A cousin of mine who read it was annoyed by all the changes they made to the movie (such as the addition of a "Black Best Friend" - thank you, TVTropes - who still managed to kick major vampire ass.) Interestingly, the guy who wrote the book was also involved with the movie, so make of that what you will...