BloatedGuppy said:
Paradoxrifts said:
If it were true that audiences really loved nigh infallible protagonists then we'd all still be watching Steven Seagal films with a devotion that bordered on the religious. It's part of the reason why the average punter wouldn't be able to remember the names of any of the fictional characters that were played by the action stars of the eighties, but could tell you that Bruce Willis played detective John McClane in Die Hard.
While I also subscribe to the "vulnerable protagonist" school exemplified by Die Hard, it's good to remember that John McClane...
1. Wipes out roughly a dozen criminals, some of whom are highly trained.
2. Outperforms the LAPD, SWAT and FBI in the process.
3. Manages to rescue all but a single hostage, who died of his own idiocy.
4. Performs several physics and logic defying stunts, to say nothing of continuing to fight/run/perform at a high level despite escalating injuries and blood loss.
He does all of this despite being a mortal man set in our actual universe, and having no access to magical powers or sci-fi/fantasy weaponry.
This is to say nothing of the fact that he then goes on to do it four more times in a series of sequels that escalate in both implausibility and awfulness.
If anything, the fact that John McClane is the poster child for the "grounded" protagonist demonstrates just how far we're willing to suspend our disbelief in our escapist entertainment.
I'll have you know that in the Berenstein universe they only ever released Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengeance. Until I crossed over into the Berenstain universe I always thought that it was odd that they didn't call Die Hard with a Vengeance Die Hard 2. I didn't even knew that I'd crossed over until someone asked me what I thought about the Star Wars prequels. I looked at them blankly and said, "What's that?"
I wasn't trying to make a point about modern Hollywood realism versus modern Hollywood idealism.
The original Star Wars trilogy is a fairly idealistic space opera. But that doesn't stop the narrative from making the protagonist an orphan from the start before killing both his adoptive parents, killing both his elderly mentors, kidnapping his best friend, having a horned space snowman successfully jump him, having desert people successfully jump him, kill himself in a haunted cave, or having his hand lopped off by a villain who turns out to be his long lost father. He gets kissed twice. By his long lost twin sister. He finishes off the trilogy by redeeming his long lost father, only to lose him immediately afterwards.
It doesn't even have to be particularly excessive.
In John Wick the audience is introduced to the ludicrous premise of a seemingly average guy who is posthumously given a puppy by his recently deceased wife. Who goes on to lapse back into a grim servant of death in the style of William Murray from Unforgiven when some poor blighted idiot comes along and kills the four legged macguffin. Someone shot my puppy, now everyone must die. But then John Wick of modern cinema is a killer whose proficiency in killing people easily exceeds the realms of human possibility, and is a far cry from the comparatively helpless but plucky moisture farmer from Star Wars.
I think a Hollywood movies legitimately suffer from power creep. It is more clearly more noticeable in the Star Wars franchise as the original trilogy, the prequels and the Force Awakens form a connected narrative that stretches across a far wider gulf of time then 95% of other film series. The Die Hard series follows a similar arc, where in the very latest outing turns out to be quite similar to the sort of standard action flick the first movie spent time deconstructing.
In the original trilogy Luke Skywalker enters play as a good pilot with force potential.
In the prequel trilogy Anakin Skywalker enters play as a child prodigy, whose innate force abilities allow him to be an ace pilot with supernaturally superior reflexes. He also happens to be technologically gifted and can create sentient robots.
The envelope is pushed even further by Rey in The Force Awakens. Not only does she show proficiency to some extent (enough to meet and resolve all of the challenges the plot throws at her) in all areas that Anakin did in The Phantom Menace, but she tops it off by repeatedly using the force without prior training to turn the tables on a seemingly more experienced practitioner before fighting in and winning her first light saber fight.
Is Rey an unbeatable Mary Sue in comparison to Luke Skywalker?
Definitely. But then I would say that John Wick is an unbeatable Mary Sue in comparison to Luke Skywalker, in fact most modern protagonists would abjectly fail such a comparison.
