Gaming Journalists Make No Damn Sense

[Dwarvenhobble]

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

I'm accustomed to bullshit and I only seem to be getting more of it.

You really want to call me privileged you're in for a bit of a laugh. Sure I'm not on the bottom but I'm certainly not at the top either.

Yep, wanting someone other than a 40 year old white dude to review your movie is such disrespect. Apologies, she didn't mean to seem like she was excluding them. Cant we have both?

You're the one trying to stop this movies from being made. You're the one being disrespectful

No it's the implicit.

"Yeh no-one wants to hear your opinion on this because you have balls"

Yeh I get my insight into romance films won't be worth much to some but I also can come up with potentially interesting positions on films or thoughts on them. Just because a woman is reviewing the film doesn't suddenly mean said woman will actually say anything different to what a male critic would say. They might or might pick up on different things but being a woman wouldn't inherently mean some radically different criticisms. I mean the remake of Carrie had a female director and ended up as a basically shot for shot remake of the original.

Also people aren't trying to stop the movies being made. They're saying know your demographics and stop complaining that the film you pushed out as "Hey men are Trash and only good as punchlines" or whatever suddenly failed because men didn't go to see it.

The Non reboot Charlies Angels did well enough with basically just men alone and I'd guess Mamma Mia did well with mostly women. Hell Sword and Sandals films primary demographic was middle aged women.

Artist dont make 'woke' thing. They just make. We apply the woke label later when we want to make it political

Edit: This is different from a studio note saying 'we need this in our movie." Because I don't agree with that, whether its conservative, progressive or libertarian. This includes all those studio notes from the 1930s to today who say "Only white males can make this movie work. Females cant do that. Black people need to die first. etc." Studio fucking with artistic visions is (usually) bad

Ok Message Mongering because the artist cares more about their message than the enjoyment and entertainment value of the entertainment they've worked on.

It can go both ways too.

I can't help but notice that the anti-woke argument almost never attacks corporate for its malfeasance. At best, they give some lip service to, "letting the artist make what they want," but when corporate puts their dick in things, it's always the talent who get the blame from the armchair experts and self-proclaimed "core audience."

Corporate meddling has a different kind of awful taste. It tastes like Rise of Skywalker and much of the new Trilogy series trying to make marketable toys rather than letting it happen. IT's the difference between lots of cute looking droids and things made and Baby Yoda who they had to rush to make toys for after Studios tried to get them to fully CGI him and not use a puppet (which the puppet turned out to help push the cute factor)

another example it was corporate who likely cut out "Captain Marvel breaks civilian mans hand and steals his bike because she was offended he made slightly sexual remarks to her." from the full film

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Nadine beating up Drake and Sam is not radical feminism, it's not even feminism. I don't think anyone that has played the Uncharted games would consider Nate to be a proficient fighter. The hero of the greatest Christmas movie ever, the great John McClane, isn't a proficient fighter either. You can be a hero and "save the day" without being a proficient fighter whether you're Nathan Drake, John McClane, or Indiana Jones. It wouldn't be radical feminism if there was a movie with all three of those characters and Michelle Yeoh's character from Supercop beat them all up at once. There's a scene in like every action movie where the hero gets beat up pretty good to up the odds/stakes. Is Joker capturing Batman radical clownism?

Battlefield series is not some super hardcore historically accurate series. If it was, it wouldn't be popular. I'm pretty sure you can dig up factual accounts of women fighting in wars like the Women's Battalion of Death from WWI. Even if women didn't fight on whatever side that the game or trailer depicts, women have combat roles now. It's not like women can't perform these roles and have never done it. How is it RADICAL feminism or feminism at all depicting what we know women have done and can do?

Scores matter how? Game journalists are horrible reviewers and user scores are extremely biased. They ain't gonna tell you if a game series was more liked or disliked by the general public as it went on. The money something pulls in does not lie.

Women in certain armies in certain roles in WWII. Mostly Middle Eastern or Russian. Not as Battlefield V as as the default allies sniper a Korean woman.

If you want to argue because you can fine some it's fine in any context I can point to a bear who served in WWII so #WheresmybearEA?

If EA wanted a woman fighting why not have DICE make 2143 a sequel to the Sci-Fi Battlefield 2142?

or gone proper alt history like Supernatural stuff and everything. The argument of "They're not obliged to try and keep somewhat authentic" can be applied to more than that if they're going to go full on go full on with Supernatural powers and weapons and stuff, full alt history stuff with it.

Hell the whole "We'll tell the actual stories of real Women in WWII in the campaign" didn't happen they removed a commando unit and replaced them with a mother and daughter as though they were saying "Yeh actual stories of real women aren't actually worth telling so here have this instead as you a supposed girl power story" or something. And it wasn't the press who called them out on it in the end it was literally a friend of the youtuber Razorfist who is an loud and proud Republican. But the Highway of Death being portrayed as a Russian War Crime not an American one in a Call of Duty game? The press were all over that like ants at a picnic.

It's called a power fantasy Houseman. None of it is real. If you did what you did in Battlefield in real life, you just be dead. 'Historical revisionsm' is the whole game. Nathan Drake could never kill that many people in the first place because it's not real life. Drake killing thousands make a woman taking him down far more likely because clearly its all a fantasy

If you dont like games like that, it's cool man. You do you. Don't pretend you know how real life game are because games are deliberately not like that. Stop trying to stop games like this being made for those you do enjoy it. Go buy the games you like instead

Here I can pull an Extra Credit

So if you want to argue historical revisionism then any game that doesn't have the same battle play out the same way and literally force people to lose in the game is historical revisionism.

Sorry but that's how it goes if you're going to try and argue aesthetic and in game actions must be 100% realistic to truly be allowed to be called accurate.

Drake being taken down by Nadine was just a fantasy for Neil Druckman I suspect.

Also isn't part of the inclusion argument arguing real life world has people so games need to include them or it's not realistic but now you're saying games can never be realistic anyway so they don't need said inclusion anyway then?

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I think you forgot Voltron, Korra, Booksmart, Ladybird, looks like the new He-man, Steven Universe etc.

Oh right the shows Tumblr really likes lol

Hey, Dwarvenhobble. Are all movies with white male leads successful?

No but such movies don't generally market themselves as Dudebro — My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time

 

[Trunkage]

No but such movies don't generally market themselves as Dudebro — My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time

I mean, what are you going on about now?
Are white males all Dudebros now? I didn't get the memo

 

[Casual Shinji]

Oh lets see

Selma - Did ok but it didn't win so was blamed on that
Batwoman
Supergirl
Vagrant Queen
New She-Ra
Charles Angels (the new one)
Battlefield V selling below expectations
Sunset - one of the devs of the studio went on quite the rant on her way out of the industry before coming crawling back when an arts grant came in.
Robert Yang tried to blame homophobia for why Rinse and Repeat got banned on Twitch or at least tried to argue his game should get special allowance to be on there and not be banned like the other games banned on Twitch.
Ghostbusters 2016 - lots of blaming sexism on that one.
Ocean's 8 saw a lot of puff pieces about great opening performance but it ended up as the lowest performing in the Oceans franchise
Assassination Nation I think the director blaming sexism on it's failure.
Birds of Prey had people online yelling it did badly due to sexism.
The Director of Terminator Dark Fate said sexists wouldn't see the film and would be scared, before the film came out.

Supergirl? The show that's been running for 5 seasons with a 6th one coming up? How did that fail? And the new She-ra did just fine. I mean what, 4 seasons on that one, too? Can't say the collective opinion on that one was 'yegh, that was a waste of time', quite the opposite actually.

You are right though, absolutely no sexism surrounded Ghostbuster '16, none at all. Not even from the (former) president of the United States. And that first Dark Fate poster reveal certainly didn't trigger the usual crowd either. They were all on board for this new movie and obviously didn't preemptively shit on it just by the simple fact that it had women.

I think people kind of predicted the issues with Rey though. She did kind of end up as a Super Powerful Mary Sue like character who didn't really face that many trials herself.

People then claimed Luke didn't and you can go

Lost aunt and uncle at the start
watch Obi-wan die
Lost his arm and nearly died
Nearly froze to death
Nearly shot early on
Nearly dies to the emperor.

Why don't we apply this to Rey:

- Sold into slavery by her parents
- Too scared to leave her slave planet due to abandonment issues
- Inintially doesn't want to have anything to do with BB-8
- Almost sells him off at the prospect of rations
- Declines a dream job, again, due to abandonment issues
- Watches a friend (something she's never really had) abandon her
- Runs off scared when revealed to be force sensitive
- Gets captured by the enemy
- Watches Han Solo get killed

Not that this makes her a good character, but it somehow gets ignored by the people who deem her a Mary Sue.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Supergirl? The show that's been running for 5 seasons with a 6th one coming up? How did that fail? And the new She-ra did just fine. I mean what, 4 seasons on that one, too? Can't say the collective opinion on that one was 'yegh, that was a waste of time', quite the opposite actually.

You are right though, absolutely no sexism surrounded Ghostbuster '16, none at all. Not even from the (former) president of the United States. And that first Dark Fate poster reveal certainly didn't trigger the usual crowd either. They were all on board for this new movie and obviously didn't preemptively shit on it just by the simple fact that it had women.

Supergirl kind of is in decline and not a steady drop off

Average viewers
S1 = 9.8 Prime Monday slot
S2 = 3.1 Prime Monday slot
S3 = 2.8 Prime Monday slot
S4 = 1.6 Prime Sunday slot
S5 =1.5 Late Sunday slot


First episode of last seaosn
1.26 Million
Final episode viewership
0.65 million

Compared that to others

Heroes of Tomorrow (which has far lesser known characters)

S1 = 3.16 Prime Thursday slot
S2 = 2.57 Prime Thursday then moved to late Tuesday half way through the season
S3 = 2.24 Late Tuesday moved to Prime Monday half way through the season
S4 = 1.49 Late Money switched to Prime Monday
S5 = 1.35 Back to Tuesdays again

First episode of last season viewership
0.72 Million

Final episode viewership
0.73 Million

The Flash
Tuesday 8pm for it's entire time
S1 = 4.63
S2 = 4.25
S3 = 3.50
S4 = 3.05
S5 = 2.43
S6 = 2.23

First episode of last season
1.62 Million

Last episode of last season
1.08 Million

Supergirl might be beating legends of tomorrow but legends was getting danced round the place while Supergirl has been standing some time for a while and yet was bleeding fans and based on the initial and final numbers of the last Legends of Tomorrow season it's now actually doing better than Supergirl

Why don't we apply this to Rey:

- Sold into slavery by her parents
- Too scared to leave her slave planet due to abandonment issues
- Inintially doesn't want to have anything to do with BB-8
- Almost sells him off at the prospect of rations
- Declines a dream job, again, due to abandonment issues
- Watches a friend (something she's never really had) abandon her
- Runs off scared when revealed to be force sensitive
- Gets captured by the enemy
- Watches Han Solo get killed

Not that this makes her a good character, but it somehow gets ignored by the people who deem her a Mary Sue.

- Sold into slavery by her parents (happens before the film starts)
- Too scared to leave her slave planet due to abandonment issues (mostly happens at the start of the film then she somewhat gets over it)
- Inintially doesn't want to have anything to do with BB-8 (Not a major issue just a reluctant hero moment)
- Almost sells him off at the prospect of rations (shows hardship of the place but not that she isn't without ways to get food)
- Declines a dream job, again, due to abandonment issues (gets a better spot instead)
- Watches a friend (something she's never really had) abandon her (Quickly gets new friends)
- Runs off scared when revealed to be force sensitive (is also most powerful force user for a long while)
- Gets captured by the enemy (and escapes)
- Watches Han Solo get killed (ok that kind of counts.)

I mean trauma wise with Luke I could have also added stuff like the whole finding out Vader is his father thing.

Rey gets scared or is shown as struggling to get by but does.

Luke is shown as nearly dying and having his arm sliced off him.

It's a bit of a difference and yes you can blame Disney for kind of trying to make it more family friendly when in the prequels we still had Anakin lose a limb and get badly sliced up at the end.

I mean Jyn Erso faces a lot a lot more in Rogue One really watching her team die etc and her father be killed and her surrogate father figure too

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I mean, what are you going on about now?
Are white males all Dudebros now? I didn't get the memo

No but that would be the equivalent marketing for a White male lead taken to the kind of level some marketing for female leads are taken to.

I mean they did literally have Jodie Whitakers Doctor shattering a glass ceiling in the previews.........

 

[Trunkage]

No but that would be the equivalent marketing for a White male lead taken to the kind of level some marketing for female leads are taken to.

I mean they did literally have Jodie Whitakers Doctor shattering a glass ceiling in the previews.........

James Bond is the first thing I imagined. I only like one movie in the franchise because its all style over substance.
Then I thought of John Wick. Exact same problem. I cannot believe that he gets hurt so much in that movie and I do not believe he is ever in danger.
Ocean's 11... that franchise should have died right there. It was pretty awful.
Ghostbuster. Allegedly a comedy. Also panders so much into political troupes that it makes 'woke' ceiling punch Whitaker seem normal
Then we get the The Devastator, Up from the Depths, Missing in Actions, Styker. Commandos, Rambo after the first one, Star Slammers, Man Killers which focusses on male power fantasies and scantily clad women.

As to ads... maybe go look some of these movie trailers. MIA, Commando, Rambo, John Wick, every goddam James Bond. Just ridiculous. All ads are terrible and selling warped and twisted ideals

 

[Casual Shinji]

Rey gets scared or is shown as struggling to get by but does.

The textbook definition of a Mary Sue if I've ever heard one. 'Rey gets scared, and sometimes she struggles, but she gets by?! What kinda woke, SJW, Mary Sue bullshit is this movie trying to sell me?'

I mean Jyn Erso faces a lot a lot more in Rogue One really watching her team die etc and her father be killed and her surrogate father figure too

Yeah, that team that was so close and had such a strong bond. And Jyn with her magnetic personality, like when she talks about hope or something.

There was more chemistry and personality between Rey and Finn in one scene of The Force Awakens than there was in the entirety of Rogue One. And that's not me praising The Force Awakens.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

James Bond is the first thing I imagined. I only like one movie in the franchise because its all style over substance.
Then I thought of John Wick. Exact same problem. I cannot believe that he gets hurt so much in that movie and I do not believe he is ever in danger.
Ocean's 11... that franchise should have died right there. It was pretty awful.
Ghostbuster. Allegedly a comedy. Also panders so much into political troupes that it makes 'woke' ceiling punch Whitaker seem normal
Then we get the The Devastator, Up from the Depths, Missing in Actions, Styker. Commandos, Rambo after the first one, Star Slammers, Man Killers which focusses on male power fantasies and scantily clad women.

As to ads... maybe go look some of these movie trailers. MIA, Commando, Rambo, John Wick, every goddam James Bond. Just ridiculous. All ads are terrible and selling warped and twisted ideals

Are we talking Daniel Craig Bond or pre Craig Bond because they're quite different styles.

As for some of the film you mentioned.......... Some of those other than like Commandos and Rambo really are B-movies which if we're going into there's quite a lot of female fronted films there, mostly Playboy bunny full fronted.

I'm not too up on Daniel Craig Bond but before then there are some moment in 007 such as the stuff with his wife, also the 2 times he has to go into agent recovery once due to the concern he's getting too old and once due to the serious state he returns from a field mission in. As in they basically bring him in supposedly barely alive.

The textbook definition of a Mary Sue if I've ever heard one. 'Rey gets scared, and sometimes she struggles, but she gets by?! What kinda woke, SJW, Mary Sue bullshit is this movie trying to sell me?'

Yeah, that team that was so close and had such a strong bond. And Jyn with her magnetic personality, like when she talks about hope or something.

There was more chemistry and personality between Rey and Finn in one scene of The Force Awakens than there was in the entirety of Rogue One. And that's not me praising The Force Awakens.

Yeh but Rey's biggest challenge is Rey not some seemingly far more powerful entity.

Jyn's personality didn't get that fleshed out but it was 1 film with a larger core case really that they decided to try and establish too.

 

[deleted20220709]

DELETED

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeh but Rey's biggest challenge is Rey not some seemingly far more powerful entity.

And how does that make her a Mary Sue? Unless the definition of a Mary Sue has changed in recent years to include 'a fictional character who struggles with personal issues, but overcomes them'. Because to my knowledge it's a term to describe a fictional character that is presented as perfect and without flaws. And seeing as Rey isn't perfect and definitely has flaws it seems a bit weird to call her one.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

And how does that make her a Mary Sue? Unless the definition of a Mary Sue has changed in recent years to include 'a fictional character who struggles with personal issues, but overcomes them'. Because to my knowledge it's a term to describe a fictional character that is presented as perfect and without flaws. And seeing as Rey isn't perfect and definitely has flaws it seems a bit weird to call her one.

Well she is hyper competent at basically everything often more so than any of the others. It may not fit the definition perfectly but the whole self doubt seems like a very minimal flaw which is overcome quickly enough

 

[Bedinsis]

My opinion about the whole Mary Sue thing when it comes to movies is that movies are fundamentally lies and if they contain feats that are beyond the ordinary(as movies are want to do) then the characters are probably Mary Sues by default. That also means that Mary Sue as a criticism is kinda meaningless, if it weren't for the fact that if people notice that something is off, like how the characters seem too amazing, then it means that people aren't buying the lie which indicates that they are failing to engage with its characters. And failing to engage with characters is the death-knell of a movie.

Of course if the reason someone is failing to engage with a character is for something like "I do not believe a person of this gender would be capable of achieving these feats/Because this character is of a separate gender from me I am not engaging with them and questioning their abilities" then the fault probably lies with that someone.

I think the problem with The Force Awakens is that to a large degree the events of the plot are caused not by the lead characters but by external forces and our heroes reacting to the circumstances. Heroes taking initiative reveal part of their character and therefore make them more engaging.

I failed to engage with the characters in The Force Awakens so my mind wandered to the probability of the events occurring and other things that I think the film-maker didn't want me to think about. While I did think Rey was a bit too competent given her background the same can probably be said of Luke in A New Hope so it really wasn't anything that I would protest about. There was only one moment that I thought crossed the line: the moment she managed to use the Jedi mind trick to escape her capture. And that is mostly because I think that was the only time the Jedi mind trick occurred in the movie, so it was pulled from nowhere if you see the movie in isolation, and it was something Rey had not had any opportunity to pick up on since it had been displayed as a Jedi power on screen.

I will admit though that I kinda lost track of the plot once Han entered the film so I might have missed something.

 

[Trunkage]

Yeh but Rey's biggest challenge is Rey not some seemingly far more powerful entity.

John Wick is a Mary/Gary Stu. Way more than Rey

 

[Dreiko]

John Wick is a Mary/Gary Stu. Way more than Rey

John Wick is supposed to be some veteran who has gone through shit and attained that skill, he isn't that way without any training and stuff.


There's a place for a seasoned veteran master of the arts overpowering everyone due to his accrued skill over the years. You can even merely imply that without showing it and it still kinda works.

It's not the same as someone being skilled just because the universe chose them, and if you do wanna have someone be like that you MUST do a ton of work showing why that is. For example, you have this other character accrue the skill and somehow merge/pass down that skill to the new character who hasn't yet done anything. That way the skill itself is justified in existing. Or maybe they only access this power at a cost to themselves, maybe they're using up their lifespan or maybe that power can only be used like 4 times and then it vanishes or you turn into a monster for using it. You know, something INTERESTING. Say, every time Ray used unearned aptitude, she becomes closer to falling to the dark side, and she has to struggle with both feeling that she doesn't deserve the power, feeling the temptations to the dark side, and wanting to help/save people. Something like that would be cool as hell.

It's not about the char being too good at things as much as the whole thing feeling unearned. It's like when you play a game with rules and your little sister who doesn't understand the rules just picks out the strongest thing that you can't use without completing a quest line and just claims she wins now. No, it doesn't work like that.

 

[Trunkage]

John Wick is supposed to be some veteran who has gone through shit and attained that skill, he isn't that way without any training and stuff.


There's a place for a seasoned veteran master of the arts overpowering everyone due to his accrued skill over the years. You can even merely imply that without showing it and it still kinda works.

It's not the same as someone being skilled just because the universe chose them, and if you do wanna have someone be like that you MUST do a ton of work showing why that is. For example, you have this other character accrue the skill and somehow merge/pass down that skill to the new character who hasn't yet done anything. That way the skill itself is justified in existing. Or maybe they only access this power at a cost to themselves, maybe they're using up their lifespan or maybe that power can only be used like 4 times and then it vanishes or you turn into a monster for using it. You know, something INTERESTING. Say, every time Ray used unearned aptitude, she becomes closer to falling to the dark side, and she has to struggle with both feeling that she doesn't deserve the power, feeling the temptations to the dark side, and wanting to help/save people. Something like that would be cool as hell.

It's not about the char being too good at things as much as the whole thing feeling unearned. It's like when you play a game with rules and your little sister who doesn't understand the rules just picks out the strongest thing that you can't use without completing a quest line and just claims she wins now. No, it doesn't work like that.

No one is as good as John Wick. It's not possible in the world its set in. No amount of training can possibly help a person do what John Wick does. Otherwise, we'd have one person who could just shoot up all the terrorist for an automatic win. Star Wars' universe has magic and lazer swords. Transferring knowledge from one arena to another quick makes more sense because magic

Star Wars has the benefit of a lower level for the suspension of disbelief. John Wick pretends its close to our world, thus close to our rules. Why would there ever be any assassins ever because John Wick. I can suspend my disbelief way easier with Rey than Wick. Because no amount of training can make you into that sort of person. You need gamma rays, wanted bullet bends, super solider serum or even Batman's nonsense phone bat-o-vision thing from Dark Knight

Like, how in gods name do you think John Wick earned anything in those movie? John Wick was never in any real danger. And it really juxtaposes to the start when somehow he gets captured but never really again for three movies. That should never have been possible because of his 'skill'

The last thing I'd call John Wick is interesting. He's an empty shell. An NPC. I'd prefer the dark side 'unearned aptitude' please. Something with real stakes. (I dont really want this. Force Awakens was a pretty bad movie. I'm fine with never seeing it again. It's just has more substance than John Wick.)

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well she is hyper competent at basically everything often more so than any of the others. It may not fit the definition perfectly but the whole self doubt seems like a very minimal flaw which is overcome quickly enough

Well, she's a typical hero character. There have been plenty of male heroes with the same level of competence, but zero level scrutiny from fans. And that's the problem with Rey; not that she's too competent, but that she's the typically comptent hero character. Same as Luke really, since we don't really see Luke actually get stronger, he just does because he's the hero. He flies a space fighter through the narrow gulch of some giant construction, and fires an energy bolt with pinpoint accuracy into an equally sized hole that conveniently blows up the entire Death Star. How? Because he's the hero character that saves the day. Eventhough just a few days ago he was some kid living a sheltered life with his boring old aunt and uncle. Almost like his character, certainly in the first movie, served as a wishfullfillment. And we don't ever really see him get knocked down. Even when Vader cuts his arm off he just gets a new one two scenes later - it's not like he needs to overcome this defeat in anyway and learn from it.

The worst you can say about Rey is that she's just that same type of character done again; down on their luck, wishing for something more. Which is why Finn should've been the protagonist/new Jedi, since his character was in a very unique postion for this franchise, and felt like it had the potential to grow in a far more interesting way. Plus, the quickly established bromance (or actual romance) with Poe really created a nice emotional flair to his character arc.

So Rey is just the typical Star Wars protagonist, except a woman.

 

[Iron]

John Wick is a Mary/Gary Stu. Way more than Rey

His gun-fu is pretty cool, reminds me of the first Matrix (i.e. the good one).

 

[CriticalGaming]

You guys wanna see a great movie?

Watch the Korean film "Train to Busan". It is incredible and features some of the best character writing ive seen in film.

So good.